Sources say main discussion topic was six-party talks
Wi Sung-lac, the minister of political affairs at the South Korean embassy in New York, is believed to have met Kim Myong-gil of the North Korean diplomatic mission to New York. The two are believed to have discussed the resumption of the stalled six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear program. In New York, Wi had previously met with Han Song-ryol, the North’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations. With Han returning to Pyongyang in mid-October, the meeting between Wi and Kim is seen as a continuation of the so-called "New York Channel" of communication between North Korea and other countries, particularly South Korea and the U.S. The meeting between Wi and Kim reportedly started with a formal greeting between the two, and then continued to focus on pending issues including the six-party talks, diplomatic sources in Washington said on November 13. The two Koreas had frequently met in New York, but the meetings were suspended after North Korea performed its missile tests in July. The two sides had only exchanged telephone calls and other unofficial contact since then.Kim studied in Guyana when he was an English major at Kim Il Sung University, and in 1997 he served as North Korea’s representative to the U.N. He was also a negotiator for the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) light-water reactor project and the Pyongyang-Washington missile talks in 2000. In October 2004, Kim visited Harvard and Stanford University with officials of a disarmament and peace research center. Before taking his current job, Kim was deputy director of the North Korean foreign ministry’s North America division. [englishhani@hani.co.kr]
