North Korea Archive

SEOUL, South Korea — Reclusive North Korea this week announced its interest in continuing talks with the United States on its nuclear weapons program. Last week in Geneva, Washington’s envoy, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, and his North Korean counterpart, Kim Kye Gwan, met for eight hours of negotiations aimed at getting the stalled Six Party talks moving again. “The two sides decided to continue direct discussions on ways to resolve problems in implementing the Oct. 3 agreement,” the official Korean Central News Agency reported. The Oct. 3 agreement, reached during the last formal round of the Six Party […]

TOKYO — Recent reports that Japanese lawmakers have been discussing the feasibility of constructing a 200-kilometer tunnel linking Japan with the Korean peninsula encapsulates as well as anything the current optimism over relations between the two countries. Last week, Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda visited Seoul to attend the inauguration of incoming South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, with Fukuda taking the symbolic honor of being the first foreign leader to be received by the new president. At the summit, the two leaders agreed to restart the regular top level shuttle diplomacy that was agreed under former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro […]