South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun's talks with his U.S. and Japanese counterparts, slated for Saturday in Hanoi, will be focused on how to compel North Korea to follow the Sept. 19, 2005 denuclearization agreement, Roh's aides said Friday.
Roh will separately hold bilateral talks with U.S. President George W. Bush and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on the sidelines of the annual APEC summit under way here, as well as a tripartite summit with both leaders.
"At the bilateral and three-way talks, Roh, Bush and Abe will intensively discuss ways to lead North Korea to abide by its obligations stated in the Sept. 19 agreement," Song Min-soon, South Korea's foreign minister nominee and Roh's current chief security policy secretary, told reporters.
"The resumption of the six-way denuclearization talks is important. But more important is the implementation of the Sept. 19 agreement. That's the focus of tomorrow's talks."
On Sept. 19, last year, North Korea signed a widely-heralded denuclearization agreement and pledged to "abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs." In return, the other members of the six-party talks agreed to respect the North's sovereignty and offer security guarantees and economic benefits.
"With the six-party talks stalled for over one year, the concerned parties now need to be convinced that the multilateral dialogue is a useful tool to resolve the North Korean nuclear problem. We'll intensively discuss how to establish the diplomatic framework for resolving the nuclear problem through dialogue," Song said.
North Korea has recently agreed to return to the six-party talks which will likely restart in early December.
Hanoi, Nov. 17 (Yonhap News)
Roh, Bush, Abe to discuss N. Korea's denuclearization pledge at Saturday's summits |
