미국, 한미-비핵화 제재이행 긴밀 조율 워킹그룹 설치

U.S. nuclear envoy Stephen Biegun left South Korea after spending two full days meeting with senior officials here in the nation.
According to a government source, the main agenda of this visit was the establishment of Seoul-Washington working group.
Lee Ji-won tells us more.
Deputy U.S. State Department Spokesperson Robert Palladino announced at Tuesday's press briefing that South Korea and the U.S. have agreed to establish a new working group.
The group, he said, will further strengthen the two countries' close coordination on diplomacy, on denuclearization efforts, on the implementation of sanctions... and on ways for the two Koreas to cooperate within the limits of the UN sanctions.
This comes as the U.S. Special Representative for North Korea, Stephen Biegun, concludes his four day trip to Seoul.
He is known to have fine-tuned those details with his South Korean counterpart, Lee Do-hoon, Seoul's special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs.
A senior official at South Korea's foreign ministry told reporters Tuesday that the working group will be led by the two nuclear envoys... and that it will be launched soon, likely in November.
Many have suspected that the reason such a working group was suddenly formed was because of a perceived imbalance in the pace of inter-Korean ties and denuclearization talks, but the official said that is definitely not the case.
Establishing the group, he said, is something that had been discussed over the past four months, and that it's meant to formally set up a system for Seoul and Washington to consistently talk and continuously work together on the numerous issues surrounding North Korea-U.S. negotiations.
The main agenda of the group will be Pyeongyang's denuclearization and three other issues mentioned by the State Department.
But the official said the agenda could become more specific, and the group could even include officials from other relevant ministries as it gets rolling.
The official was asked why Biegun met with South Korea's Presidential Chief of Staff, Im Jong-seok, who is also in charge of the committee tasked with implementing the two Koreas' agreements.
He said that Biegun mainly sought to meet various senior South Korean officials to carefully listen and learn about the country's stance.
During his visit, Biegun met with officials from the presidential office, and the ministers of foreign affairs and unification.
Lee Ji-won, Arirang News.