Washington - The US envoy for nuclear talks with North Korea met Saturday in New York with a top North Korean official to discuss the stalled denuclearization talks, the US State Department said. Ri Gun, the deputy chief North Korean negotiator to the six-party talks, met in New York with Sung Kim, the US special envoy to the talks, according to a statement from Noel Clay, a spokesman for the State Department.
Clay emphasized that Ri Gun had travelled to the US "on the invitation of US private organizations."
"During his visit, ambassador Sung Kim took the opportunity to meet with him in New York on October 24 to convey our position on denuclearization and the six party talks," Clay said.
After pulling out of international talks on ending its nuclear weapons programme earlier this year, Pyongyang recently indicated willingness to re-engage in the six-party talks.
Ri Gun and Sung Kim will apparently meet again on Sunday at the North-east Asia Cooperation Dialogue (NEACD) meeting in San Diego, California.
Clay said that from the US side, Derek Mitchell, a deputy assistant secretary of defence, would attend the NEACD meeting along with Sung Kim.
Earlier this month, South Korean media reported that Ri Gun would attend the NEACD talks. Government representatives and scientists from other participating states in the six-party talks on North Korea's denuclearization are also due to attend.
The six-party talks include Japan, Russia, China and South Korea in addition to the US and North Korea. The US has refused to meet bilaterally with Pyongyang on the issue, despite North Korea's pressure for one-on-one talks.
Clay emphasized that the US level of participation in the NEACD event in California was "the same as previous years."
Earlier this week, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton vowed that the United States will never establish normalized relations with North Korea as long as the Stalinist state has nuclear weapons.
"Current sanctions will not be relaxed until Pyongyang takes verifiable, irreversible steps toward complete denuclearization," Clinton said. "Its leaders should be under no illusion that the United States will ever have normal, sanctions-free relations with a nuclear-armed North Korea."
Earlier this year, North Korea tested another nuclear bomb in May.
The six-nation talks have produced agreements in which Pyongyang has promised to dismantle its nuclear programme step-by-step in return for economic aid and diplomatic concessions. North Korea, however, withdrew from the negotiations in April and began restoring its main nuclear site, which it had disabled as part of promises made at the six-nation talks.
