Report: South Korean Security Adviser Heads for US

Posted August 7th, 2011 at 10:05 pm (UTC-5)
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A South Korean news report says the country's top presidential security adviser is likely to travel to the United states this week to discuss the future of international talks on North Korean nuclear disarmament.

The Yonhap news agency says Chun Yung-woo is expected to depart for Washington Monday at the invitation of Tom Donilon, his counterpart in the Obama administration.

Yonhap says that during the nine-day visit, Chun is likely to meet with several U.S. officials, including Stephen Bosworth, the U.S. special envoy for North Korea.

Chun's visit would follow a recent U.S. visit by North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan to discuss steps toward resumption of the stalled disarmament talks.

Washington and Pyongyang described their talks as “constructive.”

The United States, China, Japan, Russia and South Korea have been trying to persuade the North to give up its nuclear weapons. North Korea pulled out of the six-nation talks in 2009.

The Obama administration invited Kim Kye Gwan to New York after North and South Korean diplomats met earlier in the month at an international gathering and appeared to cool tensions between their two governments.

Relations on the Korean peninsula have been tense for more than a year. North Korea is blamed for a torpedo attack that sank a South Korean navy ship, killing 56 South Koreans, and a North Korean artillery attack that killed four others. Seoul has demanded an apology, but Pyongyang denies responsibility for the ship sinking and says the South's army provoked the artillery attack.