U.S. chief nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill said six-party talks in Beijing today aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear program may produce a disarmament schedule, after the communist state closed its Yongbyon reactor.
Negotiators will start two days of talks in the Chinese capital at 2 p.m. Beijing time, seeking to persuade North Korea to permanently disable Yongbyon and abandon all its nuclear programs. Hill said he used a meeting yesterday with North Korea's chief negotiator, Kim Kye Gwan, to press for the second phase of disarmament to be completed by the year's end.
“We all know that we have got a long road ahead of us,'' Hill told reporters in Beijing today, adding that he wants the parties to “agree on getting the next phase items done in calendar year 2007.''
North Korea agreed with the U.S., South Korea, Russia, China and Japan on Feb. 13 to close Yongbyon, a processing site for weapons-grade plutonium, in return for 50,000 metric tons of heavy fuel oil, which South Korea began delivering on July 14. The country, which tested its first atomic device in October, will receive an additional 950,000 tons or equivalent assistance when it declares and disables all nuclear plants.
Fifth Site
Inspectors from the United Nations nuclear watchdog verified over the weekend that Yongbyon has been shut. North Korea closed four more nuclear plants today, Agence France- Presse reported, citing the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The UN team “verified that all five nuclear facilities have been shut down,'' AFP cited IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei as saying today in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur.
“At this stage there are no showstoppers,'' Hill said of the talks. The negotiations are designed to produce a working plan for disarmament, rather than an agreement, he added.
Progress in six-nation talks will depend on the actions of the five other nations and “what practical measures the U.S. and Japan, in particular, will take to roll back their hostile policies,'' North Korea's official Korea Central News Agency cited its Foreign Ministry as saying on July 16.
The U.S. placed the communist nation on its list of sponsors of terrorism in 1988 after North Korean agents were implicated in the 1987 bombing of a South Korean passenger airliner that killed all 115 people on board. Designation as a state sponsor of terrorism results in U.S. sanctions, including curbs on economic assistance and a ban on arms-related sales, according to the State Department's Web site.
