SKorean FM to visit RP for security conference, may meet with NKorean counterpart

SEOUL (AP) - South Korea's foreign minister will visit the Philippines this week to attend a regional security conference where he may meet with his North Korean counterpart, his office said Monday.

Song Min-soon is scheduled to be in Manila on Wednesday and Thursday for a foreign ministers' meeting of the ASEAN Regional Forum _ Asia's biggest annual security conference established by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

North Korea is also a member of the forum, and Song could hold a one-on-one meeting with his counterpart from Pyongyang, Pak Ui Chun, on its sidelines, a South Korean Foreign Ministry official said on condition of anonymity, saying the meeting has not been fixed.

Their meeting, if realized, is expected to focus on how to move a February international nuclear disarmament accord forward. Under the deal, North Korea recently shut down its sole functioning reactor, and is supposed to disclose its nuclear programs and disable facilities in exchange for economic and political concessions.

Pak said Sunday in Manila that his country remained committed to the nuclear disarmament pact reached in February between China, Japan, the two Koreas, the United States and Russia.

Song will return home Friday morning without attending other related conferences in Manila, as he has to oversee efforts to release South Korean nationals taken hostage in Afghanistan, the official said.

The Taliban seized 23 South Koreans on July 19, and killed one of them.