By Seo Dong-shin
Staff Reporter


Unification Minister
Chung Dong-young

CHEJU ISLAND _ Unification Minister Chung Dong-young will leave for Washington Sunday to brief U.S. administration officials and legislators on the recent development in inter-Korean relations, an aide to Chung said here Tuesday.
During the six-day visit that will come on the heels of the inter-Korean Cabinet talks, Chung plans to underline progress in economic cooperation between the two Koreas, especially focusing on the inter-Korean industrial complex in the North Korea border city of Kaesong, Yang Chang-seok, spokesman of the Unification Ministry, said.

Chung heads the South’s delegation to the 17th round of inter-Korean ministerial talks that opened earlier in the day. His Northern counterpart Kwon Ho-ung, a senior Cabinet councilor, arrived on this southern resort island leading a 29-member delegation to the four-day meeting.

Earlier, ministry officials said Chung, who also chairs the presidential National Security Council, will discuss ways of resuming the six-nation talks on North Korea’s nuclear programs with U.S. officials, possibly with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley.

The multilateral nuclear talks, which recessed last month in Beijing, China, have recently seemed to stall amid U.S. financial sanctions against the North over allegations of the Stalinist regime’s criminal activities, including counterfeiting U.S. dollars.

North Korea has flatly denied the charges, while blaming the U.S. for risking an ``infinite delay’’ of the nuclear talks by making such claims.

In Washington and Los Angeles, Chung is scheduled to meet with U.S. experts in the Korean Peninsula. He is also to meet U.S. Congressman Jim Leach and Chuck Hagel, a Republican senator, according to Yang.

saltwall@koreatimes.co.kr