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China Presents Draft for Nuclear Document, North Korea Talks to Continue

Posted on: Saturday, 30 July 2005, 15:00 CDT

Text of report in English by Japanese news agency Kyodo

Beijing, 31 July: China, the host of the six-nation talks on North Korea's nuclear programmes, presented a draft of the grouping's first joint document Saturday [30 July], paving the way for negotiations to begin on the wording of a set of principles for solving the nuclear row.

US and Japanese government officials said the draft, the content of which has yet to be disclosed, will serve as a basis for discussion beginning Sunday by negotiators from countries that also include North and South Korea.

"I think today was a pretty important day because this morning the Chinese hosts to the talks distributed a text based on written submissions from the other parties," said Christopher Hill, the chief US delegate.

"In our view... [agency ellipsis] the Chinese text represents a good basis for the further negotiations and further discussions," said Hill, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs.

"Tomorrow, we're going to try to give each other ideas to try to build a final text," Hill said. "When we're able to do that is hard to tell because these things take time."

A Japanese government official separately told reporters, "There is a long way to go, but we now have a draft that we could base our discussions on."

The joint document, described by negotiators as containing a set of "agreed principles" for ending the North Korean nuclear crisis, would be the first of its kind to be adopted under the six-party framework.

The six parties were unable to draw up a joint document during the previous three rounds due to sharp differences between the United States and North Korea.

In the third round of talks held in June 2004, they had settled instead for a weaker "chairman's statement" by host China to sum up their talks.

While the content of the document has yet to be revealed, a negotiation source said the draft calls for the abandonment of "nuclear weapons programmes" as well as "nuclear programmes" that lead to such weapons.

But it does not include the word nuclear "dismantlement" as the United States and Japan have requested, according to the source.

The draft says other countries should provide the North with security guarantees in exchange for nuclear abandonment, and calls on both North and South Korea to remove nuclear threats, according to the source.

It calls for solutions to bilateral problems in order to realize the normalization of relations between the United States and North Korea as well as Japan and North Korea, according to the source.

One of the bilateral issues Japan wants to solve with North Korea is the abduction of Japanese nationals by North Korean agents. Japan has been pushing for a reference to the topic in the document.

A key for the joint document, diplomats say, is whether the United States and North Korea can find common ground.

"Obviously, there are a lot of elements in the text where we have a disagreement on, so we're going to have to work that through," Hill said, referring to differences between the two countries.

US-North Korea talks were one of a series of bilateral meetings held Saturday, in addition to the 20-minute meeting of the six delegation chiefs, at which the draft was presented.

The United States and North Korea are at odds over both the scope of the denuclearization and the steps that should be taken to achieve it.

North Korea said earlier in the week that its "nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons programmes" could be dismantled if bilateral ties with the United States are normalized and the "US nuclear threat" is removed.

Specifically, North Korea has called for the removal of nuclear weapons it says the United States has deployed in South Korea, though the United States says it no longer has such weapons there. North Korea is also demanding an end to the US nuclear umbrella covering the South.

For its part, the United States urged North Korea to dismantle all its nuclear programmes, covering not only weapons programmes but those for civilian use, as well as the alleged secret uranium enrichment programme whose existence the North has denied.

The two also differ over how denuclearization should be achieved. North Korea says benefits for the country such as security guarantees and economic aid should come first, while the United States says dismantlement should come first.

The six nations resumed the six-party process after a 13-month suspension due to North Korea's boycott since the third round in June last year.

The six-way talks have already gone on longer than the previous rounds, and no closing date has been set for the negotiations.

Meanwhile, Russia's chief negotiator, Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Alekseyev, left Beijing for home Saturday morning, China's state-run Xinhua news agency said.

Alekseyev had said earlier in the week that he would leave but have his deputy stay in Beijing for the talks.

Source: BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific

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