오늘 북미 실무협상,… 쟁점은 영변+알파와 그에 해당하는 상응조치 될 것으로 보여
It's early Saturday morning over in the Swedish capital of Stockholm,... and in a few hours,... the highly-anticipated working-level talks between North Korea and the U.S. will get underway.
On the previous day,... the two sides also held a preliminary discussion.
To tell us more about how that went, our foreign ministry correspondent Lee Ji-won is joining us on the line.
Ji-won tell us what you know.
Mokyeon, it is known that the U.S. Special Envoy for North Korea Mark Lambert and Kwon Jong-gun,... the former head of the regime's North American affairs department carried out yesterday's discussion.
Now as it was a preliminary discussion in preparation for today's meeting,... the two sides only met for a few hours Friday morning... to reportedly work out the schedule and administrative tasks for today's sit-down.
Regarding the general atmosphere,... we hear that the U.S. thinks constructive talks were exchanged in an amicable way.
Now, while we do not know when and for how long the two sides will meet today,... we know that Kim Myong-gil will be heading the North Korean delegation... while U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun will do so for Washington.
It's the first time that the two sides have sat down on the negotiating table... since the Hanoi summit fell apart in February.
The main sticking point of today's meeting, is expected to be whether North Korea will give up anything more than the Yeongbyeon nuclear facility, such as freezing its nuclear program,... and whether the U.S. will give partial sanctions relief or security guarantees in exchange.