By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter
The strained inter-Korean relations won't affect efforts to resume the six-way talks on Pyongyang's nuclear program, top U.S. nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill said Tuesday.
``I think we should probably not overreact to those comments,'' Hill told reporters upon arrival at Incheon International Airport.
Hill is in Seoul to attend the opening ceremony of the Asia Society's Korea Center today, but he will also meet South Korean officials to discuss ways of achieving a breakthrough in the stalled six-party talks.
The visit by Assistant Secretary of State Hill comes amid growing tensions between the two Koreas following North Korea's back-to-back provocative remarks and actions against South Korea's new government, which wants to link inter-Korean ties to progress at the multilateral nuclear talks.
Hill has no plan to visit Pyongyang or Beijing, the U.S. Embassy in Seoul said.
North Korea missed a Dec. 31 deadline to declare a complete list of its nuclear programs and activities, including an alleged uranium enrichment program, under the so-called Feb. 13 deal.
Under the pact, the North would receive 1 million tons of heavy fuel oil or equivalent aid and other political concessions from the five other countries, in return for disabling its key nuclear facilities and disclosing its nuclear programs.
The North says it gave the list to the U.S. government in November, a claim Washington has denied. Negotiators at the six-party talks insist that the list addresses claims of a secret uranium enrichment program and allegations that the regime transferred nuclear technology to Syria.
Seoul and Washington have pressed the North to meet its earlier pledge to disclose a ``complete and correct'' list of its nuclear programs.
In a joint press conference with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Washington, D.C. last week, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Yu Myung-hwan said ``Time and patience are running out'' over the delay of the denuclearization process.
A day later, Yu said the multilateral disarmament process should move forward to the next stage to fully dismantle the North's nuclear programs by August, saying the U.S. government would find it difficult to implement any ``significant'' agreements due to the political schedule in the United States.
The Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported Tuesday that Hill presented the names of North Korean nuclear experts allegedly involved in the transfer of nuclear technology to Syria during recent talks with his North Korean counterpart, Kim Kye-gwan.