NKorean official to visit US on stalled nuke talks

Source: AP

By MATTHEW LEE

BALI, Indonesia (AP) - North Korea's vice foreign minister will visit the United States this week to discuss the next steps needed to resume international negotiations aimed at ridding the communist nation of its nuclear programs, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Sunday.

The announcement was a further sign that diplomats could be close to reviving six-nation talks that broke off in 2008.

The minister, Kim Kye Gwan, will travel to New York at Clinton's invitation, which she made after a meeting Saturday in Bali, Indonesia, with Kim and Japan's foreign minister, Takeaki Matsumoto. The meeting came on the sidelines of a regional forum of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations where officials from 27 nations discussed security.

Kim will meet with a team of U.S. officials to explore his country's commitment to return to the international talks and take concrete steps toward disarmament, Clinton said in a statement issued as she was leaving Bali.


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U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton pauses during the Joint Commission Meeting Indonesia-U.S. in Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia, Sunday, July 24, 2011. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)