By Kim Se-jeong
Staff Reporter
North Korea and the United States will hold a bilateral meeting very soon, before the resumption of six-party talks, Yonhap News reported Saturday.
Quoting a Korean government official, who was accompanying Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan on his trip to the U.S., the report said that ``it appears, the two countries will have a second bilateral meeting, which will logically lead to the nuclear talks sometime in March or April.''
North Korea has consistently requested one-on-one meetings with the U.S. as a prerequisite to its return to the talks. Washington has also urged Pyongyang to return to the negotiating table. In December, Stephen Bosworth, U.S. envoy on North Korea, flew there for talks.
After a meeting between Yu and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a State Department spokesman said Washington saw signs that were encouraging.
Philip Crowley, assistant secretary of state for public affairs said, ``Actually, we see the potential here for the six-party process to begin in the coming weeks or months.''
However, ``the key is looking for a signal from North Korea they are in fact prepared to make that commitment,'' he said.
Some observers said the North would like to send its chief nuclear envoy Kim Kye-gwan ― who has been invited to visit by a think tank ― to the U.S.
The first bilateral meeting took place in Pyongyang in December.
The six-party talks are aimed at dismantling North Korea's nuclear program.
Prevailing opinion is that the nuclear program is the last thing the North will hold onto, and Pyongyang could make false promises to keep it going.