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North Korea Talks Continue; China Presents Second Draft Document

Posted on: Monday, 1 August 2005, 03:00 CDT

Text of report in English by South Korean news agency Yonhap

Beijing, 1 August: China presented a second draft statement of "principles" Monday [1 August] as the six-nation talks aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear programme entered a second week. The top US delegate, Christopher Hill, said the new Chinese text, the second since Saturday, reflected all sides' views but it still contains "a lot of differences".

"Overnight, there was the second draft that the Chinese host put together," Hill said as he left his hotel on Monday morning. "We are going to see what comments we have in common and what points we differ." Hill said the new draft will be discussed by deputies.

The second draft was prepared after some of the six countries involved in the talks - the two Koreas, the United State, host China, Japan and Russia - had expressed reservations about its contents, Hill said. While praising China's role in hosting the six- nation talks, Hill also gave high marks to South Korea which he said has come up with a "very creative proposal" to give electricity aid to North Korea to help resolve the nuclear tension.

Hill said the South Korean energy offer will make its way into the final document. US officials believe that Seoul's energy aid offer will preclude the North's demand for a right to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Hill said he planned to hold more one- on-one meetings with South Korea, North Korea and China on Monday. In the past week, he held close to 30 such bilateral meetings with other delegations.

All countries, including North Korea, are committed to a denuclearlized Korean Peninsula but South Korean and US officials said there still are many differences over how to achieve the goal. "Everything is a problem until everything is solved," Hill said. "I think the second draft reflected all sides' applications. The host has a very tough job."

South Korean officials said the focus of the discussions was on what benefits North Korea can expect to get in exchange for giving up its nuclear programmes. North Korea is demanding a firm security guarantee and economic aid. The Untied States maintains that the North should not be allowed to keep even a programme for civilian use out of proliferation concerns.

No date has been set to end this round of talks which began on Tuesday. This round, the fourth in its series, is the longest-ever. Three previous rounds lasted three or four days. According to South Korean and US officials, North Korea is resisting Washington's demand that it dismantle all its nuclear programmes before getting any outside help. Hill said the "sequencing" issue has been a significant topic in the negotiations. "There has been effort to bridge those gaps," he said.

Japan is discontent with the Chinese text which reportedly doesn't include a mention of the Cold War-era kidnapping of about a dozen Japanese citizens by North Korean agents. South Korean officials said a 1992 inter-Korean "denuclearization" agreement provides the basis of the discussions in Beijing. The inter-Korean accord requires the two Koreas not to make, introduce or stockpile nuclear weapons. It specifically bans the Koreas from building reprocessing or highly enriched uranium (HEU) facilities. The latest nuclear row was caused by a US claim in 2002 that North Korea was pushing a secret HEU programme, in addition to its plutonium-based arms programme, a claim denied by the North. North Korea said in February that it has manufactured nuclear weapons.

Source: BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific

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