SEOUL -- South Korea's special envoy to North Korea will likely be a ministerial-level official and is expected to visit the North immediately before or during the Pyeongchang Paralympics that run from March 9 to 18, according to sources.
In a phone call on Thursday, South Korean President Moon Jae In informed U.S. President Donald Trump of his plan to soon dispatch a special envoy to Pyongyang. The Moon administration will begin serious consideration of candidates for the position and could announce a plan as early as this week.
According to a source close to South Korea's presidential Blue House, Trump requested during the phone call that, if a special envoy is dispatched, Moon share with the United States information on North Korea's reaction and other details on what happened in the country.
South Korean envoys have visited North Korea in the past, including Kim Man Bok, then director general of South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS), who traveled to Pyongyang with a personal letter from the president in August 2007 ahead of South-North talks in October that year.
South Korea will likely send a ministerial-level official to the upcoming talks to reciprocate for the high-level North Korean delegation sent to the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, the sources said.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un dispatched senior officials for the occasion, including Kim Yo Jong, his younger sister and first vice director of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea.
According to the sources, candidates for the envoy position include NIS director general Suh Hoon and Unification Minister Cho Myoung Gyon. Im Jong Seok, the chief presidential secretary to Moon, is also under consideration.
The U.S. government welcomes the South-North dialogue, but refuses to negotiate with Pyongyang unless talks are premised on the North's denuclearization.
The White House said on Thursday that "any dialogue with North Korea must be conducted with the explicit and unwavering goal of complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization."
Japan takes cautious stance
The Japanese government remains wary of South Korea's plans to dispatch a special envoy. Worries persist that Seoul could compromise on Pyongyang's nuclear and missile development and that the Japan-U.S.-led pressure campaign against the North could collapse.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga emphatically said at a press conference Friday: "Close cooperation among Japan, the United States and South Korea is extremely important. There will be no changes to our policy to take all possible measures in applying maximum pressure on North Korea to force a change in its [nuclear and missile] programs."
Foreign Minister Taro Kono also said at a press conference, "We'll make serious efforts to share information with South Korea and the United States."
Should inter-Korean talks progress without a clear promise by Pyongyang to halt its nuclear development, a rift could emerge in the trilateral cooperation among Japan, the United States and South Korea as well as holes in the international net encircling North Korea.
The Japanese government intends to ask the South Korean government to maintain a policy of pressuring Pyongyang.
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