SKorea: Summit should help resolve nuclear dispute

South Korea says summit with North Korea should help resolve nuclear standoff

(AP)  SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - A summit between the two Koreas should help resolve the dispute over North Korea's nuclear programs, a South Korea official said Saturday, as a negotiator for the North arrived in the U.S. in likely pursuit of bilateral talks with Washington.

North Korea's No. 2 nuclear negotiator, Ri Gun, met on Saturday in New York with the chief U.S. nuclear negotiator Sung Kim, a State Department spokesman said.

"Ambassador Ri Gun has traveled to the U.S. on the invitation of U.S. private organizations," State Department spokesman Noel Clay said in a statement. "During his visit, Ambassador Sung Kim took the opportunity to meet with him in New York on October 24 to convey our position on denuclearization and the six-party talks."

The U.S. says it is willing to have direct talks with the North if it leads to resumption of six-party talks aimed at halting North Korea's nuclear weapons programs that also include South Korea, China, Russia and Japan.

North Korea and the United States do not have diplomatic relations. Ri was given permission to visit the U.S. for unofficial meetings that include the Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue, a forum sponsored by the University of California-San Diego.

Clay said that Kim and principal deputy assistant secretary of defense, Derek J. Mitchell, would participate in the San Diego forum which begins on Sunday. The sessions will also include government officials and scholars from China, Russia, Japan and South Korea.

Clay said the U.S. level of participation in the forum "is the same as previous years."

The North's reported push for a summit with the South and talks with Washington is part of a series of conciliatory moves by the regime in recent months after escalating tensions with nuclear and missile tests.

Analysts have said the moves show North Korea feels the pain of U.N. sanctions following its May nuclear test.

South Korea's largest television network KBS reported Thursday night that a senior South Korean official met with the North's spy chief, Kim Yang Gon, in Singapore last week and talked about a possible meeting between North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.

North Korea first asked for the meeting, but the talks ended without agreement as the South demanded that the reclusive Kim visit the South, and the North balked at the demand citing security concerns, the report said. It cited an unidentified South Korean official.

Officials, including the South's Unification Minister Hyun In-taek, declined to confirm the reports. But Hyun said Friday that progress in international efforts to rid North Korea of its nuclear weapons programs is key to a summit with the North.

"Our government's position remains unchanged that we would not hold a meeting for meeting's sake," Lee Dong-kwan, senior presidential secretary for public relations, said Saturday in comments posted on South Korea's presidential Web site.

He said a summit "should be helpful to progress in the resolution of North Korea's nuclear issue," noting there won't be any behind-the-scenes negotiations or contract with North Korea over a summit.

North Korea's Kim has held summits with the South twice: the first in 2000 with the South's then-President Kim Dae-jung and the other in 2007 with then-President Roh Moo-hyun.

Relations between the two Koreas frayed badly after the more conservative Lee took office early last year. But Lee has said he is willing to meet with Kim Jong Il at any time, but that any such summit should tackle the North Korean nuclear issue.

North Korea pulled out of the six-party disarmament talks in April, but Kim Jong Il said earlier this month that the North could rejoin them depending on progress in its possible one-on-one negotiations with the U.S.

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Associated Press writer Jae-soon Chang in Seoul contributed to this report.