North, South Korea to discuss nuclear program next week

North, South Korea to discuss nuclear program next week Top nuclear negotiators from North and South Korea will meet in Beijing next week to resume talks on the North's nuclear program, Yonhap News said citing a South Korean official on Friday. Negotiations on North Korea's nuclear program began in 2003 after the country announced itself a nuclear power and threatened to build up its nuclear arsenal to counter what it calls hostile U.S. policies. Kyodo News said on Friday that North Korea's chief nuclear negotiator, Deputy Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho, would attend a nuclear research seminar for North Korea on September 19, organized by the Chinese Foreign Ministry. Nuclear negotiators South Korea, Japan and the United States will not be represented at the forum. North Korea has been banned from nuclear or ballistic missile tests under UN Resolutions 1718 and 1874 passed in response to Pyongyang's nuclear tests in October 2006 and in May 2009. The Six-Party talks on Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions involving the two Koreas, China, the United States, Russia and Japan began in 2003 and came to a halt in April 2009 when North Korea walked out of negotiations to protest the United Nations' condemnation of its missile test. The negotiating process was resumed in July when South Korea's nuclear envoy Wi Sung-lac and North Korea's Ri Yong-ho met in Bali, Indonesia, for the first time in two and a half years.