BEIJING - Talks aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear threat will focus on
Tuesday on how to disable the reactor at the heart of its nuclear program and
begin mapping out future disarmament steps, the chief US envoy said.
US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill speaks to
the media in Beijing, March 19, 2007. [Reuters]
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US Assistant Secretary of State
Christopher Hill said the six-party talks in Beijing would consider what happens
after a mid-April deadline, when North Korea is due to shut the Yongbyon reactor
in return for economic aid and security assurances spelled out in an initial
February 13 agreement.
"Clearly we have to meet all the 60-day milestones. That's why we're here -
to review that, and we'll be doing that today," he told reporters on Tuesday.
"Frankly, I hope the 60-day discussions will go pretty quickly today and we
can get onto the lengthier discussions about the next phase," Hill said.
Tasks for the six parties - the two Koreas, the United States, host China,
Japan and Russia - after the deadline would involve "disabling" the reactor and
requiring that North Korea report other nuclear activities.
Those steps promise to test the wary North, which exploded its first nuclear
device last year.
"We need to know what the full picture of their nuclear programs are, so that
when they're abandoned and dismantled we've done all of it," Hill said.
As this session of talks opened on Monday, the United States announced that
$25 million in North Korean accounts frozen at Macau's Banco Delta Asia would be
released to Pyongyang, overcoming an impasse that had caused North Korea to
boycott the six-party negotiators for over a year.
Washington had accused the Macau bank of harboring illicit North Korean
earnings.
North Korea has rejected the charges, and its envoy Kim Kye-gwan has said
that his country wanted that money back before it shuts the Yongbyon plant.
Kim has yet to say publicly whether Pyongyang thinks the US announcement was
acceptable, but diplomats sounded hopeful.
One diplomatic source said Kim softened "somewhat" when he heard about the US
decision on its frozen funds.
And South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted sources as saying Kim had
explicitly confirmed that his country would see through its pledge to shut down
nuclear facilities.
The six-party talks scheduled to go through to Wednesday are also likely to
discuss the other nuclear activities that North Korea must report.
Most thorny may be Pyongyang's role in highly enriched uranium (HEU)
technology, which can be used to make the fissile material in nuclear weapons
without running a tell-tale reactor.
North Korea has denied enriching uranium.
US officials have recently steered away from the Bush administration's
earlier claims that Pyongyang was close to mastering the complex process. Hill
said Pyongyang needed to make a full declaration, including dealings with other
countries.
Talks are also hampered by distrust between Pyongyang and other countries at
the negotiating table.
The North's official KCNA news agency accused Tokyo of trying to scuttle the
talks and said North Korea does not want energy aid from Japan as a part of the
deal to end Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program.
Japan has said it will not give full-scale economic aid to North Korea or
establish diplomatic ties unless a feud over Japanese citizens kidnapped by
Pyongyang in the 1970s and 1980s to train its spies has been
resolved.