U.S., Korea And Japan To Review Visit to Kim

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U.S., Korea And Japan To Review Visit to Kim

Foreign ministers from South Korea, the United States and Japan will meet on Wednesday in Seoul to coordinate their positions on North Korea as the communist state opens up to the outside world, officials said Tuesday.

U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, flying in from Pyongyang, will brief her South Korean and Japanese counterparts on her first encounter with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il.

A Foreign Affairs Ministry official told the JoongAng Ilbo English Edition that the three countries will also discuss the planned U.S. presidential visit to North Korea next month.

Relations between the United States and North Korea have been progressing slowly in tandem with warming relations on the Korean Peninsula since the leaders of the two Koreas met in June in Pyongyang.

North Korea watchers said the improving ties between the United States and North Korea are likely to speed up talks between Japan and North Korea aimed at normalizing ties.

"The improving ties between the United States and Japan are likely to create an atmosphere for high-level talks between Japan and North Korea," Yun Duk-min, a research fellow at the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security, said over the phone.

Early this year, Japan and North Korea began negotiations to establish relations after a break of more than seven years in the talks.

Mr. Yun did not rule out the possibility that remarks by Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori on missing Japanese citizens who are believed to have been kidnapped by North Korean agents could get in the way of the two countries' making progress in the talks this month in Beijing.




by Lee Soo-jeong

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