U.S. nuclear envoy Christopher Hill plans to visit Tokyo but skip Seoul while en route to Beijing next week to attend a new round of six-nation talks aimed at persuading North Korea to denuclearize, the State Department said Friday.
The six-nation talks, which involve the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia, are scheduled to resume in the Chinese capital on Thursday. The last meeting was held in July right after the communist nation shut down five key nuclear facilities under an aid-for-denuclearization deal.
Hill, who heads the U.S. delegation to the denuclearization talks, usually stopped over in Seoul and Tokyo before attending the negotiations in the past, but officials in Seoul said the U.S. envoy decided to drop Seoul from his schedule this time because of Chuseok, a three-day Korean harvest holiday starting on Monday.
"Hill, as a former ambassador to Seoul, understands the importance of Chuseok holiday and how we celebrate the fall harvest day," an official at the Foreign Ministry said, asking that he not be identified.
The official, however, said Hill and his South Korean counterpart Chun Yung-woo were likely to meet individually in Beijing when they arrive in the Chinese capital on Wednesday.
Next week's meeting follows a rare visit to North Korea by a team of nuclear experts from the U.S., China and Russia earlier this month for discussions on disablement of the North's nuclear facilities at Yongbyon that have been shut down under the February agreement.
The three-nation team is expected to report to the Beijing meeting its findings, providing a basis for the next-stage actions for denuclearization of North Korea, including its promised full declaration of nuclear programs.
Hill is expected to fly directly back to the United States after the six-party talks end tentatively on Sept. 30 to attend the U.N. General Assembly in New York, according to the State Department.
(Yonhap)