(2nd LD) Seoul invites N. Korea to forum on peace in Northeast Asia

(ATTN: CORRECTS para 4 due to official correction; ADDS more info in paras 6-7)

SEOUL, Oct. 23 (Yonhap) -- South Korea has sent an invitation to North Korea for its October forum aimed at implementing President Park Geun-hye's policy for promoting peace in Northeast Asia, government officials said Thursday.

Seoul plans to hold a meeting of government and private experts to exchange views on such issues as energy security, nuclear safety and cyberspace, the main agenda items to be dealt with at the "Northeast Asia Peace Cooperation Initiative (NAPCI)," from Oct. 28 to 30, they noted.

The vision calls for countries in the region to build trust through nonpolitical cooperation in areas before coping with political and security matters.

"Seoul has invited North Korea to the forum," Noh Kwang-il, a spokesman at Seoul's foreign ministry, told a regular press briefing. South Korea has conveyed its invitation to Pyongyang via the North's mission to the United Nations in New York.

Seoul's government said that it has invited officials from the United States, China, Japan, Russia, Mongolia and others. But the North, which is critical of the NAPCI, has not responded to Seoul's invitation, the ministry said.

Sydney Seiler, new U.S. special envoy for the six-party nuclear talks, will attend the conference, it said.

The participants for the forum also include Lakhdar Brahimi, former U.N.-Arab League special envoy to Syria, and Alexander Vershbow, deputy secretary-general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

"As the forum is mainly supposed to deal with non-political issues, to my knowledge, there may be no discussions about the six-party talks. But a possibility of such discussions cannot be excluded," he added.

Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se has said that Northeast Asia lacks a multilateral cooperative mechanism, adding that the NAPCI could be a "suitable and tailored" approach to promoting cooperation in the region.

sooyeon@yna.co.kr
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