SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea will seek high-level talks with North Korea this month as preparations for a summit began on Friday, the presidential chief of staff said, while officials in the South expressed interest in a separate summit with the United States. The report by intelligence analysts at Jane’s by IHS Markit said satellite imagery from 25 February showed emissions of non-condensable gases from a stack at the North’s experimental light water reactor (ELWR) at the Yongbyon Atomic Energy Research Center, suggesting preliminary testing had likely begun. The reactor could be used to produce weapons-grade plutonium, but North Korea is believed to already have enough fissile material for multiple nuclear bombs, according to Joshua Pollack, a senior research associate at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. If North Korea agrees to the talks, they would be the first North-South contact since a South Korean delegation returned from a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un this month and a chance for North Korea to break its silence on promised engagements with the South and the United States. Officials of the two Koreas will discuss key agenda topics and other matters related to the pending summit between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Kim, Moon’s presidential chief of staff, Im Jong-seok, told a media briefing. The talks about talks come after the head of the U.S. Pacific Command said the United States could not be overly optimistic about the outcome of any summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Kim, aimed at ending the North’s nuclear and missile programs, and must go into it with “eyes wide open”. When Trump tweeted that he would meet with Kim Jong Un, North Korea had not taken any steps toward denuclearization. TALKS IN SWEDEN

North Korea’s state media has yet to comment on the content of Kim’s meeting with the South Koreans, but North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho arrived in Sweden this week for talks with his Swedish counterpart Margot Wallstrom, prompting speculation he could lay the groundwork for a Trump-Kim summit. The push for these summits came after the North Korean leader said in a New Year’s address that he wanted to improve relations with the South following a year of heightened tensions brought on by the North’s nuclear and missile tests. It says that in 2008 Hannity said that President Barack Obama’s "willingness to meet with North Korea is one of the most disturbing displays of Obama’s lack of foreign policy experience." “They haven’t made any agreements lately with the U.S., so the work goes on.”

An official at the South’s defence ministry said authorities were aware of the Jane’s report, which follows a similar one released on the 38 North website earlier this month that said a nearby reactor had also continued to show signs of operation. The isolated state has always maintained it will continue to develop its nuclear weapons as a deterrent against U.S. aggression but, according to South Korea, it later said it was open to abandoning the program if the security of its regime was guaranteed.
South Korea states that they want high-level talks with North Korea before the summit.