The foreign affairs and defense chiefs of South Korea and the United States will meet next week in Washington to discuss North Korea’s nuclear threat, the bilateral alliance between the two countries and cooperation in global issues, Seoul officials said Tuesday.
The meeting, dubbed two-plus-two, will be held on June 14 by Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan and Minister of National Defense Kim Kwan-jin, and their respective U.S. counterparts Hillary Clinton and Leon Panetta.
They are expected to seek ways to improve the ties between the two countries and better defend South Korea amid increasing saber rattling by the North.
The four-way discussion was initiated in Seoul in July 2010 in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the Korean War.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton looks toward North Korea during a visit to observation post Ouellette at the Demilitarized Zone in Panmunjeom on July 22, 2010. The DMZ is a strip of land that divides North and South Korea at the 38th parallel. (AP-Yonhap News)
Tensions have been escalating following Pyongyang’s failed rocket launch in April. The heavily militarized state has recently threatened to attack the South Korean government and conservative media organizations.
During the visit, Minister Kim Sung-hwan plans to give a speech on the Korea-U.S. alliance on June 16 at a meeting of the World Affairs Council, a non-profit organization in Los Angeles, on the Korea-U.S. alliance.
In a related move, Glyn Davies, U.S. special representative for North Korean policy, plans to visit Moscow, Brussels and Paris this week for meetings with officials and Asia experts.
He met last month with his counterparts Lim Sung-nam of South Korea and Shinsuke Sugiyama of Japan. They pledged a unified response to any further provocations by the North.
Robert King, U.S. special envoy for human rights in North Korea, will travel to Tokyo and Seoul this week, the U.S. State Department said Monday.
He will arrive here on Saturday and meet senior officials including Lim, special representative for Korean peninsula peace and security issues, and Kim Tae-hyo, senior security advisor to President Lee Myung-bak.
By Shin Hyon-hee (heeshin@heraldcorp.com)
