Korea Times
US envoy arrives in Seoul for nuclear cooperation talks
A senior U.S. official arrived in Seoul Tuesday for an upcoming meeting with South Korean officials over their countries' nuclear cooperation pact, a diplomatic source here said.
Robert Einhorn, the State Department's special adviser for nonproliferation and arms control, is leading a team of U.S. officials for a four-day visit, the source said. Einhorn will be the chief U.S. delegate to the talks set for Thursday and Friday. His counterpart will be Cho Hyun, a former deputy foreign minister for multilateral and global affairs.
Their meeting this week will be the second round of talks on rewriting the nuclear cooperation pact that bans South Korea from reprocessing spent fuel from civilian nuclear power plants. The previous talks were held in Washington last October. The 1974 nuclear pact is set to expire in March 2014.
In Washington last fall, the two sides agreed to launch joint research on Seoul's demand to adopt what is known as "pyroprocessing" technology, which is considered by some to be less conducive to proliferation, as it leaves separated plutonium, the main ingredient in making atomic bombs, mixed with other elements.
But nonproliferation advocates say pyroprocessing is not much different from reprocessing.
South Korea, which produces 36 percent of its energy at 20 nuclear power plants, has to deal with more than 10,000 tons of nuclear waste at storage facilities that are expected to reach capacity in 2016.
During his stay, Einhorn will also meet South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan and Seoul's chief nuclear envoy, Wi Sung-lac, to discuss international sanctions on North Korea.
South Korea plans to designate a special envoy for these nuclear pact talks before the next meeting. (Yonhap)
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2011/03/113_82303.html
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