New round, old questions for N.Korea nuclear talks
08 Jul 2008 15:04:01 GMT Source: Reuters
(Updates with Hill comments, changes dateline) By Chris Buckley BEIJING, July 8 (Reuters) - Five regional powers will hold disarmament talks with North Korea from Thursday, seeking agreement on how to check the account the secretive state gave of its nuclear activities, officials said on Tuesday. The six-party talks in Beijing, the first in nine months, come after Washington responded to the North's declaration of its nuclear assets by starting to take it off a terrorism blacklist. But Washington has also called on Pyongyang to answer lingering questions on proliferation and uranium enrichment. In Japan, the G8 summit added its weight to calls for North Korea to cooperate with the nuclear disarmament process. In the Chinese capital for warm-up talks with North Korea and other countries, the chief U.S. negotiator, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, said this session would focus on ways to check the nuclear declaration North Korea made in June. Envoys would "try to work out as soon as we can a verification regime", he told reporters, adding that elements up for discussion included rules for visiting sites and interviewing North Korean nuclear experts. "I don't think there'll be any surprises for anyone," Hill said, adding that many issues were covered in earlier bilateral contacts. "I think we've teed this up pretty well." Hosted by China, the six-party talks include the two Koreas, Japan, Russia and the United States. This session is provisionally scheduled to last for three days, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told a news conference. INSPECTION PROGRAMME Analysts said North Korea may sign off on an inspection programme but will delay further disarmament steps for as long as possible to squeeze out concessions. "North Korea has no reason to reveal everything it's got," said Park Young-ho, an analyst at the South's Korea Institute for National Unification. "Nuclear armaments are not only North Korea's 'card' to play strategically at the negotiating table, but they are also a tool for Kim Jong-il to stay in power." At a summit in Japan, the Group of Eight nations pressed North Korea to overcome such suspicions. "We urge the DPRK to fully cooperate in the verification process, including its effective implementation," the G8 powers declared. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea is the North's official name. In late June, the North presented a long-delayed account of its nuclear weapons programme that contained information on its plutonium production, but did little to address U.S. suspicions of a secret uranium enrichment programme. North Korea, which tested a nuclear device in October 2006, was required in a disarmament-for-aid deal to make the declaration and start taking apart its Soviet-era nuclear plant at Yongbyon by the end of 2007. It had completed most of the disablement steps by the end of last year. On June 27, in a symbolic move to show its commitment to the deal, the reclusive state invited in media to witness a controlled blast that brought down the cooling tower at its main nuclear reactor. In return for these steps, the energy-starved North has received heavy fuel oil aid. Once it is removed from the U.S. terrorism list, the communist state will see an end to sanctions that have mostly cut it off from international banking. The declaration, however, did not address the North's nuclear weaponry and facilities other than Yongbyon. And there may even be problems with what it did declare because according to reports in Japanese media, the North said it produced about 30 kgs (66 lbs) of plutonium, while U.S. officials have said they think it is closer to 50 kgs. (Additional reporting by Jon Herskovitz and Kim Junghyun in Seoul and Chris Buckley in Beijing; Editing by Alex Richardson)
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