'US eager to move to next stage of NK talks'

U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun speaks to reporters after a working group meeting with South Korean officials at the foreign ministry building in Seoul, Friday. / Yonhap

Inter-Korean railway, road projects to proceed next week

By Kim Bo-eun

U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun stated his country wishes to move to the next stage of denuclearization talks with North Korea, Friday.

A sanctions issue has been cleared, making way for holding a ceremony next week to mark the launch of inter-Korean railway and road projects, Biegun's counterpart Lee Do-hoon said. He added issues have been cleared in joint excavations of Korean War remains by the South and North.

The remarks came after a working group meeting between South Korea and the U.S. led by Lee and Biegun.

“We are eager to move to the next stage of discussions with our North Korean partners,” Biegun told reporters after the meeting at the foreign ministry in Seoul.

“We expect in the course of those discussions we would be able to talk about some of the details around President Trump's upcoming summit with Chairman Kim.” He added there are no dates or locations to announce at this point.

Earlier, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a radio interview the U.S. is hopeful the leaders of the U.S. and North Korea will meet early next year for a second summit.

The U.S. stance toward North Korea appears to have shifted, considering it was pressuring Pyongyang over its human rights situation, imposing sanctions recently on top North Korean officials. Pyongyang had responded by threatening it could stop denuclearization efforts.

Denuclearization talks were in a deadlock for months, with the two countries failing to hold high-level talks to decide what denuclearization steps North Korea would take and what the corresponding measures from the U.S. would be. Based on such circumstances, prospects of a second summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and U.S. President Donald Trump next year appeared bleak.

However, the U.S. is taking a more flexible approach, with Biegun stating the U.S. would review a possible exemption for U.S. citizens traveling to North Korea for humanitarian aid purposes.

His remarks came as he arrived in South Korea on Wednesday for a second working group meeting. The working group was launched last month for closer coordination on inter-Korean affairs and the North's denuclearization.

Biegun said the working group meeting discussed the issue of humanitarian assistance.

“Some of the reviews and licenses and travel approval do affect the ability of humanitarian organizations to do very important work in North Korea, and so we have committed to review those policies when I return to Washington,” he said.

He mentioned the current travel ban of U.S. citizens to North Korea limits humanitarian assistance to Pyongyang. The travel ban was imposed after the death of American college student Otto Warmbier, who had been imprisoned in North Korea and returned in a vegetative state.

While humanitarian aid is not subject to sanctions, the move is viewed as an appeasement gesture towards Pyongyang, and attention had grown over whether Washington would exercise further flexibility in regard to the issue of sanctions.

However, regarding the matter, Biegun denied this possibility.

“The U.S. has no intentions of easing our unilateral or United Nations sanctions. However, within the context of the engagement that we have with North Korea, we are prepared to explore a number of other things that could build trust between the U.S. and North Korea,” he said.

One of these is expected to be humanitarian assistance. It is yet to be seen whether South Korea would be able to provide the North with an $8 million aid package, approved by the government in September last year.