Forum meets without Pyongyang’s delegate

U.S. special envoy for six-party talks, Sung Kim, seated at right, attends the first day of the Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue at the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security in Seocho, Seoul, yesterday. [YONHAP]

An annual multilateral forum, organized to discuss security in Northeast Asia, opened in Seoul yesterday without one of its critical members - North Korea.

Government officials and academics from South Korea, Japan, China, Russia and the United States are expected to discuss security cooperation in northeast Asia during the two-day conference.

The U.S., founder of the Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue (Neacd), said that North Korea was “not quite ready” to send its delegates this year.

This year’s participants include Kim Hong-kyun, director-general of the Korean Peninsula Peace Regime at Seoul’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade; Sung Kim, U.S. special envoy to the six-party talks; Masafumi Ishii, deputy director-general of international security policy at Tokyo’s Foreign Ministry; Yang Houlan, an envoy at Beijing’s Foreign Ministry; and Grigory Logvinov, Russia’s deputy envoy to the six-party talks.

The six-party nuclear talks have been stalled since December 2008 after Pyongyang walked.

Yonhap