The top United States negotiator on the North Korean nuclear issue will retire this week, a foreign news report said Tuesday.

The 63-year-old Special Representative for North Korea Policy Joseph Yun will retire at the end of the week, CNN reported.

"It was completely my decision to retire at this time," Yun was quoted as telling CNN. He also said Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had accepted his resignation.

(Yonhap)
He was appointed to the current post in October 2016 under the previous President Barack Obama's administration. Yun flew to North Korea in June last year to bring home American college student Otto Warmbier, who was convicted of a crime in the North and fell into a coma. He died days after arriving in the US.

Yun's resignation will leave another important post dealing with Korean issues empty, with the seat for the US ambassador to South Korea remaining unfilled for more than a year.

His resignation also comes at a critical diplomatic juncture for possible talks between the US and North Korea after Kim Yong-chol, a senior North Korean ruling party official, told President Moon Jae-in and other South Korean officials that Pyongyang is willing to talk to the Americans.

Speaking on the issue, South Korean foreign ministry spokesman Noh Kyu-duk said the retirement is due to "personal reasons" and "something that's not sudden."

"Susan Thornton, nominee for assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, will be acting (in the vacant post) for some time," the spokesman said, adding the countries' bilateral coordination will be conducted in an undisrupted manner through the new channel.(Yonhap)