By Kim Sue-young
Staff Reporter

North Korea's chief negotiator to the deadlocked six-party talks arrived in China, Tuesday.

Kim Kye-gwan flew into a Beijing airport with Wang Jiarui, a top Chinese Communist Party official, who was returning from a four-day visit to Pyongyang, according to reports.

The move triggered speculation that North Korea might rejoin the denuclearization talks soon.

During his meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, Wang conveyed to him an invitation to visit Beijing from Chinese President Hu Jintao

Kim reportedly promised to make continuous efforts for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

"During his visit, Wang reaffirmed China's promise to send large-scale assistance to North Korea. So, I think the North Korean nuclear envoy will deliver Kim Jong-il's message that Pyongyang will continue to seek denuclearization and suggest an exact date of a comeback to the talks," Prof. Yang Moo-jin at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul told The Korea Times.

"In my opinion, the six-way talks are likely to resume in March."

Hong Hyun-ik, a senior research fellow at the Sejong Institute in Seoul, also said the suspended talks involving South and North Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia were likely to be held next month.

"Given the current circumstances, the North appears ready to rejoin the talks in March if the United States and South Korea promise to lift sanctions or express their willingness to discuss the establishment of a permanent peace regime," he said.

The secretive state declared it would boycott the multilateral meeting "forever" after the United Nations imposed sanctions on it for a second nuclear test on May 25 last year.

ksy@koreatimes.co.kr