South Korea's top national security adviser Kim Kwan-jin is expected to visit the United States next month to discuss North Korea sanctions and other pending issues concerning the Korean Peninsula, a government source in Seoul said Sunday.
Kim Kwan-jin will visit Washington, D.C. and hold talks with his counterpart, National Security Adviser Susan Rice, the source said, adding that the two sides are still working on the details of the visit, including the exact date, ccording to South Korea's (Yonhap) News Agency.
Kim's visit, if arranged, will be part of a routine discussion between the National Security Office and the White House National Security Council (NSC) to reinforce cooperation between the two.
Seoul expects Pyongyang to soon accept its proposal for high-level inter-Korean talks now that South Korea and the U.S. have ended their two-week annual joint military exercise, the Ulchi Freedom Guardian.
South Korea had repeatedly called on the North to accept its proposal, but the North scoffed at the idea, calling the military maneuver a war exercise against Pyongyang.
Kim and Rice are likely to address Seoul's 2010 sanctions against North Korea, the source said.
The South imposed what are called May 24 sanctions after the North torpedoed the South Korean Navy corvette Cheonan. The sanctions virtually cut off all economic and cultural exchanges between the two Koreas, except for a joint economic factory park in the North Korean border town of Kaesong.
North Korea's nuclear weapons program is also expected to be high on the agenda of the meeting between the two national security advisers, the source said.
It will mark the first U.S. visit for Kim, who was tapped to his post in June after serving as the country's defense minister for five years.
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