Anchor: South Korea’s main envoy on the North Korean nuclear issue has departed for three days of talks in the United States. Part of the trip agenda is to launch a new body aimed at keeping Washington and Seoul on the same page in dealing with the North.
Kurt Achin reports.

Report: Nuclear negotiator Lee Do-hoon left for Washington on Monday to meet with Stephen Biegun, the U.S. State Department official in charge of Korea affairs. 

Several representatives from the presidential office and the Ministry of Unification are joining Lee on the South Korean side of a new bilateral consultative body between the two countries, expected to be inaugurated on the visit.

The new body aims to focus on denuclearization and coordinate sanctions, amid signals of a widening gap between the Trump and Moon administration on sanctions enforcement.

So far, U.S. President Donald Trump has insisted sanctions remain in place until North Korea’s irreversible denuclearization is verifiable.

However, South Korea has echoed the positions of China and Russia, who say initial steps down the path of denuclearization should be recognized and rewarded with corresponding moves.

The working group will have "systemic and regular" consultations on denuclearization efforts, sanctions implementation and inter-Korean cooperation, the two sides announced.

South Korea in particular is seeking sanctions relief so that it can carry out delayed infrastructure projects to modernize the North’s roads and railways connecting the two Koreas and China.

Pyongyang condemns the new U.S.-South Korea working group.

Uriminzokkiri, a propaganda site that reflect’s North Korean policy thinking, calls the establishment of the new group “an arrogant act” aimed at interfering with North-South cooperation.

U.S.-North Korea relations remain in a holding pattern with no new date set yet for high-level talks supposed to take place in New York nearly two weeks ago.  

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo did express publicly appreciation for North Korea’s decision to release a detained American, and the Trump administration says a second U.S.-North Korea summit is on track to happen early next year.
Kurt Achin, KBS World Radio News.