Seoul, Pyongyang to attend NK roundtable meeting in Stockholm

By Yi Whan-woo

Researchers at the two Koreas’ state-run think tanks on foreign affairs will attend a roundtable meeting in Stockholm Friday to discuss security issues over the Korean Peninsula, according to government sources Thursday.

The sources said the two researchers from Seoul’s Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security (IFANS) under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would join the meeting.

They are IFNAS President Shin Bong-kil and Jun Bong-geun, who heads the Department of National Security and Unification Studies at IFANS.

The Institute for Security and Development Policy (ISDP) will host the meeting until Saturday. ISDP is a non-profit research organization in Stockholm that focuses on international security, including the denuclearization of North Korea.

Along with Shin and Jun, also career diplomats, ISDP has invited scholars from the North Korean foreign ministry’s institute on arms control and peace, according to the sources.

Other participants will include researchers from private think tanks in the United States and China.

The meeting will take place after Hwang Joon-kook, Seoul’s top nuclear envoy, said Tuesday that South Korea, the U.S., China and Japan had shared their thoughts about resuming the dormant six-party talks on Pyongyang’s nuclear program.

The five countries and North Korea are members of the talks that have been suspended since 2008.

“South Korea and Russia had intensively discussed ways to resume the six-party talks,” Hwang told reporters in Moscow after his meeting with Igor Morgulov, the Russian delegate for the six-party talks.

“South Korea held the meeting over the issue with the U.S. and Japan in January and also another one with China in February. Now it can be said the five countries were able to collect ideas to restart the six-party talks.

“We’ll deliver our thoughts to Pyongyang through relevant diplomatic channels and we hope North Korea comes to the table in a sincere manner.”