 |
| President Moon Jae-in and U.S. President Donald Trump shake hands during a summit at Cheong Wa Dae in Seoul in November 2017. Yonhap |
By Lee Min-hyung
 |
| Stephen Biegun, U.S. special representative for North Korea |
U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun will visit Seoul, Thursday, for talks with officials here on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, according to the U.S. State Department.
His visit takes place two days before U.S. President Donald Trump's planned trip to the South this weekend. Trump will hold a summit with President Moon Jae-in and discuss measures to resume the suspended nuclear disarmament negotiations with North Korea.
"Stephen Biegun will travel to Seoul, June 27-30, and meet with South Korean officials before joining U.S. Secretary of State Pompeo for President Trump's visit to Seoul," the department said in a press release, Monday (local time).
It did not disclose any other details regarding Biegun's itinerary during his stay in Seoul. Expectations are that he will hold talks with his counterpart Lee Do-hoon, Seoul's special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs.
Lee and Biegun are also likely to fine-tune the security agenda for the upcoming summit between Moon and Trump.
It remains unknown whether Biegun will contact North Korean officials at the inter-Korean border village of Panmunjeom. Officials in Seoul and Washington did not confirm any details, but chances are that Biegun may seek to arrange working-level talks with the North in consideration of the recent thaw in relations between the two.
The summit between Moon and Trump comes at a time when Washington and Pyongyang are showing signs of resuming their suspended denuclearization negotiations.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a report to the National Assembly, Tuesday, that there have been some positive signals for the possible resumption of dialogue between the two sides, and that it would pay close attention as to whether these actually turn into reality.
The ministry also said that the upcoming few weeks will be a crucial period for the resumption of negotiations.
The positive signals include the recent exchange of letters between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. The "letter diplomacy" is widely seen as part of their bilateral willingness to restart the now-suspended talks.
On Monday, Trump said he received a "very friendly letter" from Kim in which the North's young leader sent birthday wishes.
"It was just a very friendly letter both ways," Trump said. "We have a very good relationship."
This came in response to Kim's recent reaction to Trump's letter, which he called "interesting." The North's state-controlled media outlets quoted Kim as saying that he would "seriously contemplate" the interesting content of the letter from Trump.
Trump will likely discuss nuclear strategies with Moon in his upcoming two-day trip to Seoul. The U.S. president will arrive in South Korea, Saturday afternoon, right after ending his schedule in Osaka for the G20 summit. On Sunday, the two leaders plan to hold a summit at Cheong Wa Dae.
This will be the first time since November 2017 that Trump has come to South Korea. At that time, he was supposed to visit the demilitarized zone between the two Koreas, but that plan was cancelled due to bad weather.
Trump may be considering making the trip to the area during his upcoming visit to the South, but the U.S. government did not confirm his schedule, while leaving the possibility open.
