U.S. official denies plans for bilateral meeting with N. Korea

ATTN: ADDS arrival of N. Korean foreign minister in Bali)
By Kim Deok-hyun
   BALI, Indonesia, July 21 (Yonhap) -- The United States has no intention of meeting with North Korea during a regional security forum this week, a senior U.S. diplomat said Thursday, denying a Japanese media report.
   "That's not true," Kurt Campbell, assistant U.S. secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, told Yonhap News Agency.
   The report is "absolutely incorrect ... There is no meeting between the U.S. and North Korea," Campbell said.
   Earlier in the day, Japan's Kyodo News Agency reported, citing a diplomatic source, that Campbell had asked North Korea for
at meeting on the sidelines of the ASEAN forum here.
   The report said the U.S. is apparently seeking to arrange contact between U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and North Korean Foreign Minister Pak Ui-chun in Bali.


   South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan has said he is willing to hold an informal bilateral meeting with Pak in Bali, possibly in an attempt to get North Korea back to the stalled six-party talks on ending North Korea's nuclear program.
   The six-party talks, stalled since late 2008, group the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia.
   South Korea, the U.S. and other regional powers are pushing to reopen the six-party talks in a three-step approach in which North Korea will meet with South Korea first and then the U.S. for one-on-one talks on denuclearization before resuming the multilateral process.
   North Korea's Pak arrived in Bali late on Thursday, without responding to a barrage of questions by reporters on whether he would meet the South Korean foreign minister this week.
   A source close to the ASEAN forum also said Ri Yong-ho, the North's vice foreign minister, arrived in Bali hours before Pak.