Preparations for the US and North Korea are “well underway” in Washington, according to Democratic Party of Korea Rep. Chung Dong-young on Monday.

Chung, who was minister of unification in 2004-5 for late President Roh Moo-hyun, told The Korea Herald that after a series of meetings with mainly Republican figures, he was under the impression that talks between the US and North Korea “may materialize over this year.”

Chung, as part of the bipartisan delegation of five lawmakers from the ruling and opposition parties, returned Sunday from Washington. Aside from Chung, the delegation included Democratic Party Reps. Wi Sung-lac and Kim Young-ho and People Power Party Reps. Cho Kyung-tae and Bae June-young.

“I was told that the preparations for talks with North Korea are well underway,” he said, adding, “Given President Trump’s bold approach to making deals, I think we may start to see something concrete within this year.”

Chung continued, “The fact that a bipartisan delegation of lawmakers visited Washington is meaningful in itself. It shows that the system is working as it should, and our parliament is fully functioning.”

On this day, the Democratic Party launched a special committee for national defense and security for policy formation as the possibility of an early presidential election looms.

Speaking at the first meeting of the party’s committee, Democratic Party Rep. Park Sun-won said the US side told him that Trump would be open to South Korea arming itself with nuclear weapons, in light of North Korea’s advancing nuclear program.

“Trump is a dealmaker, and he finds it almost odd that South Korea wouldn’t want its own nuclear weapons given North Korea’s possession of nuclear weapons,” Park said, citing his US sources.

Park said that if that was the dominant sentiment in Washington under Trump, South Korea’s liberal party “should no longer treat the possibility of nuclear armament a taboo.”

Park said that he was told the Democratic Party in Seoul was even thought to be not joining the conservatives’ calls for potentially going nuclear to avoid making North Korea and China uncomfortable.

In South Korean politics, the idea of South Korea developing nuclear weapons has mainly been discussed among the conservative People Power Party.

Park said that experts in Washington and Seoul believe it would take “at least a decade” before North Korea can be completely denuclearized, under the condition that nuclear negotiations with Pyongyang steadily progress.

“But there is no guarantee that both the US and South Korea will have administrations that will prioritize North Korea as a policy agenda for over 10 years,” he said.

Park said that South Korea “would not weaponize” its nuclear capabilities, but that it could pursue a state of “nuclear latency,” which is a state of having the necessary technology and infrastructure to quickly develop nuclear weapons.

Park added that South Korea achieving nuclear latency to counter North Korean nuclear threats was his opinion and not the Democratic Party’s official position.

-In association with the Asia News Network