SEOUL _ North Korean Foreign Minister Pak Ui-chun left for Manila Saturday to attend an Asian regional forum, the country's media reported, amid international efforts to dismantle the communist country's nuclear weapons program.
Foreign ministers and other top diplomats from 27 countries are scheduled to attend the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), Asia's largest security forum, that opens in the Philippine capital on August 2.
Its members also include the United States, the European Union, China and South Korea.
In a joint statement to be issued at the end of the two-day forum, the participants are expected to praise the North's recent shutdown of its key nuclear facilities under a six-party deal, according to South Korean officials.
The North's shuttered nuclear facilities that include its only operating 5-megawatt reactor at Yongbyon, about 100 kilometers north of Pyongyang, has been used to produce plutonium, a key material in making bombs.
In a second part of the deal with South Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia, North Korea is required to declare all of its weapons-related nuclear facilities in exchange for massive energy assistance. No timeframe for the second-stage action has been set.
Preoccupied with Iraq, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will miss the Manila forum. Her deputy, John Negroponte, will lead the U.S. delegation. South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-soon will attend the forum.
(Yonhap)