North Korea's chief nuclear envoy and other diplomats plan to hold meetings with former U.S. negotiators and security experts in Singapore next week, diplomatic sources said Sunday.



The two days of meetings, set to begin on Jan. 18, will involve Ri Yong-ho, the North's chief negotiator for six-party denuclearization talks, his deputy Choe Son-hui, as well as Jang Il-hun, the North's deputy ambassador to the United Nations, the sources said.



Their American counterparts will be former U.S. special envoy for North Korea policy Stephen Bosworth; former deputy nuclear negotiator Joseph DeTrani; Leon Sigal, director of the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project at the Social Science Research Council; and Tony Namkung, former deputy director of Berkeley's Institute for East Asian Studies, the sources said.



Sigal played the leading role in organizing the meeting, they said.



The envisioned meetings come after North Korea offered to temporarily suspend nuclear tests in exchange for a halt to joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises, and Washington rejected the proposal as an "implicit threat."



Relations between the U.S. and the North have worsened further recently following a cyber-attack on Sony Pictures. The U.S. has blamed the North for carrying out the attacks and imposed fresh sanctions, but Pyongyang has categorically denied its involvement.



Though the U.S. government will not be involved, the upcoming meetings could be a chance for the two sides to better understand each other's position on how to resume the six-party talks that have been on hold since the last session in late 2008. (Yonhap)