While host country China has yet to confirm the session, diplomats from six nations are expected to gather Monday in Beijing for the latest round of talks aimed at dismantling North Korea's nuclear sector, Agence France-Presse reported today (see GSN, Dec. 3).
(Dec. 4) -
Negotiators from six nations met in July to discuss North Korea’s denuclearization. The sides plan to meet again on Monday (Greg Baker/Getty Images).
"Since the six parties have all agreed to resume the talks on Dec. 8, I expect them to resume as scheduled," South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan told reporters.
A flurry of activity has preceded the anticipated session. After meeting this week with his counterparts from Japan and South Korea, top U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill was in Singapore today for talks with North Korean envoy Kim Kye Gwan.
Pyongyang last year agreed to denuclearization in exchange for a host of concessions from China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States. The process has seen notable achievements -- including disablement activities at several key nuclear facilities and demolition of a reactor cooling tower -- but has also ground to a halt on several occasions. Most recently, North Korea has claimed that it did not agree in October to allow collection of nuclear samples as part of a program to verify the scope of its nuclear activities.
Negotiators expect to try to set out a plan for verification, produce a schedule to finish disablement of Pyongyang's plutonium-producing reactor and other sites at the Yongbyon nuclear complex, and establish a time line for providing the full 1 million tons of energy aid promised to North Korea under the 2007 deal, Yu said.
"What is important is the six parties, first of all, have to reach a consensus on the sampling and the 'scientific procedure' that the United States and North Korea agreed on" in the verification plan, Yu said. "If such a consensus is reached, it should be documented in whatever form it is. That's the basic position of South Korea, the United States and Japan" (Agence France-Presse I/Spacewar.com, Dec. 4).
Hill also stressed the importance of a transparent verification plan prior to his meeting with Kim, AFP reported.
"When we get to verification we want to have a clear road map of how verification is being done," he said. "We don't want a situation where, when we get to verification, there is some misunderstanding on what we agreed to."
Verification is also expected to include site visits, interviews with North Korean nuclear personnel and reviews of documents.
After the meeting at the U.S. Embassy, Hill said: "We are having this kind of consultation in order to make sure everyone understands what we need to get accomplished with the six-party process" (Agence France-Presse II/Spacewar.com, Dec. 4).
South Korean negotiator Kim Sook said that Seoul, Tokyo and Washington hope to see disablement activities completed at Yongbyon by the end of March 2009, the Korea Herald reported today.
"South Korea, the United States and Japan agreed to cooperate to finish up the second phase of the (North's) denuclearization process by as early as the first quarter of next year, and enter into the third phase thereafter," Kim said after his meeting with Hill and Japanese envoy Akitaka Saiki. "We coordinated views on the verification protocol and how to end the second phase of denuclearization."
Disablement is intended to prevent the facilities from resuming operations for at least one year. It would be followed by full dismantlement of North Korean nuclear facilities and, it is hoped, the regime's atomic arsenal (Jin Dae-woong, Korea Herald, Dec. 4).