By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter
Chief U.S. nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill is expected to visit North Korea this week in a last-minute effort to salvage a faltering agreement to abolish the communist state's nuclear programs, reports said Sunday.
Hill discussed his visit to Pyongyang with his counterparts involved in the six-party denuclearization talks in New York last week, in the wake of North Korean moves to rebuild its main nuclear reactor in Yongbyon, U.S. news outlets said, quoting unidentified officials.
The Yongbyon reactor was supposed to be disabled under a disarmament-for-aid pact signed between the six-party members ― the United States, the two Koreas, China, Japan and Russia ― in February 2007.
Hill is scheduled to arrive in Seoul tomorrow for talks with his South Korean counterpart Kim Sook, officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said, while declining to comment on Hill's possible visit to the North.
``We're not in a position to confirm the reports,'' a ministry official said on the condition of anonymity. ``But if that is the case, it would be desirable in that such a visit (by Hill) could break the current nuclear deadlock by re-opening direct talks with North Korean authorities.''
Hill visited North Korea twice last year for talks with North Korean officials. His visit was successful in breaking an impasse with the North's nuclear issue, having Pyongyang start disabling the Yongbyon plant.
The North announced late last month that it would halt disabling the Yongbyon compound, accusing the United States of delaying the regime's removal from a list of terrorism-sponsoring states.
In an apparent move to put more pressure on Washington, North Korea last week removed International Atomic Energy Agency seals and equipment from the plutonium-producing Yongbyon reactor and vowed to begin reprocessing spent fuel rods into the raw material needed for nuclear weapons.
The United States and four other members of the six-party forum have urged North Korea to stop taking actions to reverse the denuclearization deal under which the North is to receive one million tons of heavy fuel oil or its equivalent in aid and other political concessions, including removal from the U.S. blacklist, in return for giving up all its nuclear programs.
The deal's second-phase process has stalled as North Korea rejects accepting U.S. proposals to verify its nuclear declaration made in June. The U.S. government maintains a firm stance that the establishment of a verification protocol should precede North Korea's de-listing. The United States also wants to verify details of the North's suspected uranium enrichment program and nuclear proliferation activities.
The de-listing is crucial for the North since currently it is prevented from receiving foreign aid and loans. Pyongyang was put on the list in 1988 after its agents blew up a South Korean passenger plane, killing all 115 people aboard.