By Kim Sue-young
Staff Reporter
Top nuclear envoy Kim Sook arrived in Washington Sunday to meet with U.S. counterpart Christopher Hill, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said.
The two nuclear negotiators are set to have a meeting today to discuss North Korea's declaration of nuclear weapons program based on results of the U.S. delegation's visit to Pyongyang last week.
The meeting is Kim's first official meeting since he assumed the post on April 15.
The two sides are also expected to discuss the influence the six-party talks will have after the U.S. State Department's possible announcement that it believes the communist state has been helping Syria build a nuclear reactor.
The U.S. experts' team, led by Sung Kim, director of Korean affairs at the State Department, made a three-day visit to North Korea last week to press the reclusive regime to provide a list of its nuclear weapons-related information, such as plutonium stockpiles, warheads, nuclear facilities and a logbook on the operations of its main Yongbyon reactor.
The group has been cautious in announcing the results of the visit but Hill was quoted by Reuters as saying the delegation had ``productive discussions.''
Last Friday, North Korea reported progress in talks with the U.S. team aimed at restarting a stalled nuclear disarmament deal. ``Negotiations proceeded in a sincere and constructive manner and progress was made," a North Korean foreign ministry spokesman was quoted as saying by the communist state's Korean Central News Agency.
South Korea and the United States have sought to resume denuclearization talks with China, Japan and Russia in mid-May once Pyongyang fully declares its nuclear programs, according to diplomatic sources.
Multilateral talks to solve the nuclear issue have been in a deadlock since the Stalinist country missed a Dec. 31 deadline to declare its nuclear programs and materials even though it shut down key plutonium-producing facilities last year.
Pyongyang claims it submitted the list the U.S. required but the North American nation said it has not received a ``complete and correct'' one.
Hill and his North Korean counterpart, Kim Kye-gwan, agreed on a tentative deal earlier this month in Singapore in which the North would ``acknowledge'' concerns over a uranium enrichment program.