Japan’s top nuke envoy to visit S. Korea

Japan’s chief negotiator to the stalled six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear programs will visit South Korea this week to coordinate the neighbors’ stance toward the communist state, a foreign ministry official said Monday. Shinsuke Sugiyama is scheduled to meet with his South Korean counterpart Wi Sung-lac during his two-day trip that begins on Tuesday, the official said. The sides are also expected to discuss the return of South Korea’s cultural assets looted during Japan’s colonial occupation of the Korean Peninsula, according to South Korea’s (Yonhap) news agency. Among others, Sugiyama plans to discuss how Japan and South Korea should step up their cooperation in preventing North Korea from deepening its uranium enrichment project that they believe is a second way to develop nuclear weapons. Pyongyang claims the project is aimed at peaceful energy use. The six-party talks, which also group the US, Russia and China, have not been held since 2008. North Korea says it is willing to discuss its uranium enrichment activities within the framework of the negotiations, while South Korea and the US say the North’s actions must be condemned as a violation of UN resolutions before the talks can reopen.