U.S. nuclear negotiator, due in Seoul, says talks with N. Korea making progress

Washington's top envoy to international negotiations with North Korea to persuade the communist nation to give up its nuclear ambitions is expected to arrive here this week for discussions on ways to resume the recessed talks, South Korean officials confirmed Sunday.

"Assistant Secretary (of State) Hill is to arrive in Seoul before Friday and hold talks with Deputy Minister Chun Young-woo," South Korea's chief nuclear negotiator, an official at the Foreign Ministry told Yonhap News Agency while asking not to be identified.

Tom Casey, a spokesman for the U.S. State Department, said Friday in Washington that the U.S. negotiator will hold talks with South Korean officials on Friday, Chinese officials Saturday and Japanese officials on Sunday.

The purpose of his trip, Casey said, is to "continue our consultations with our key partners in the six-party talks on how we might achieve progress in the next round."

Seoul and Washington hope the nuclear disarmament talks resume before the end of this month or early next month, but Pyongyang has yet to give any indication that it would soon return to the negotiating table and bring positive answers to a joint suggestion by South Korea and the U.S. on ways to take "early steps" toward denuclearizing the North.

South Korean officials said it is more important for the communist nation to come back to the negotiating table with positive answers that will move negotiations forward than just return to the talks soon.

The U.S. negotiator said the nuclear talks are a process that takes up "a lot of time," but that they are beginning to make progress.

"It offers no refuge for those in need of instant gratification, but I do believe that we are making progress on denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula," Hill said in a season's greeting to his "Korean friends," posted on an informal Web site of the U.S. Embassy here.

He did not elaborate. The message was posted Thursday.

Hill held the top post at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul from August 2004 until late 2005 when he was named the head of the U.S. delegation to the North Korean nuclear disarmament talks, which also involve South Korea, Japan, China and Russia.

He said he missed Seoul, but that "I don't feel very far away from Korean issues and problems."

North Korea agreed last year to abandon its nuclear ambitions in return for economic and diplomatic benefits, but says it will not do so until the U.S. gives up what it claims to be a hostile policy aimed at isolating and stifling its regime.

The communist state set off an underground nuclear explosion on Oct. 9.

The nuclear dispute erupted in late 2002 when the U.S. accused the North of running a clandestine nuclear weapons program.

Seoul, Jan. 14 (Yonhap News)