The next round of six-nation talks aimed at dismantling North Korea's nuclear program may be held next week, the U.S. and South Korean governments said, after China postponed discussions scheduled for tomorrow in Beijing.
The delay was “basically a scheduling problem, not a political one,'' South Korea's chief nuclear negotiator, Chun Yung Woo, said in a telephone interview today.
His U.S. counterpart, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, expects to travel to Beijing next week for the talks, the State Department said yesterday.
The negotiations, involving North Korea, South Korea, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia, will focus on how Kim Jong Il's government can identify and dismantle all its nuclear programs by the end of this year, as agreed with the U.S. earlier this month at a meeting in Geneva.
The talks were “delayed at the request of North Korea,'' Kaoru Yosano, Japan's top government spokesman, said today at a regular news conference in Tokyo. “We don't have information on how long they will be delayed or the actual reasons North Korea cited for the delay.''
China's Foreign Ministry said yesterday it couldn't say when the talks will be held.
Fuel Oil
North Korea agreed Feb. 13 to disclose and disable its nuclear program in exchange for 1 million metric tons of fuel oil or the equivalent in aid.
The communist nation in July shut down and sealed its Yongbyon reactor, including a reprocessing plant that, according to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, produced enough fuel for several atomic weapons. It agreed with the U.S. on Sept. 2 to a year-end deadline to dismantle all its nuclear plants.
South Korea's Chun dismissed newspaper reports North Korea had refused to attend the talks this week because there was a delay in the delivery of heavy fuel oil from China.
“I don't think that is the case,'' said Chun, speaking from Seoul. “The delay is not that big a deal. The Chinese will announce a date later this week.''
U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack was asked whether reports last week that North Korea could be helping Syria build a nuclear plant had caused the delay.
“I wouldn't necessarily attribute it to those news reports,'' he told reporters in Washington, according to a government transcript.
North Korea today denied the reports in the New York Times and Washington Post, and said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency they were “groundless.''
Nuclear officials from the U.S., Russia and China visited North Korea last week to inspect its atomic plants.
Japan's Kyodo News reported on Sept. 12 the Beijing talks may be delayed if the three-nation delegation was unable to submit a report on its visit before Sept. 19.
