China, Japan says North Korea talks set for next week

By Nopporn Wong-Anan

BEIJING (Reuters) – China and Japan said on Friday
six-party talks aimed at dismantling North Korea’s nuclear
weapons program are still on for next week, but no date has
been fixed.

The status of the talks, which also include the two Koreas,
Russia and the United States, had been up in the air with
silence from all sides on a firm date to resume after the
participants agreed to a three-week recess in the last round.

Asked by reporters whether the talks were still on track,
Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said: “Of course we have
agreed to that. We will resume the second phase of the fourth
round of six-party talks from the week starting August 29.”

Asked if an exact date had been fixed, he said: “We are
working on that.”

North Korea has been playing the nuclear card to win
diplomatic and economic benefits since a standoff began in
October 2002 after Washington said Pyongyang had admitted to a
secret program to enrich uranium, violating a 1994 accord.

Pyongyang has since denied having such a program beyond its
known plutonium plant.

Later on Friday, Japanese diplomatic sources in Beijing
were quoted by Kyodo news agency as saying Wu Dawei, Chinese
Vice Foreign Minister and China’s top envoy to the talks, could
visit Pyongyang as early as Saturday.

After a gap of more than a year, the six sides met in
Beijing for nearly two weeks before breaking off earlier this
month with an agreement to reconvene during the week of August
29.

Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura said on Friday
the plans had not changed.

“We are making preparations toward starting some time next
week,” he told reporters.

While the participants have been working actively to
restart the negotiations, North Korea has not toned down its
criticism of the United States.

On Wednesday, Pyongyang criticized joint military drills by
U.S. and South Korean forces, where the two are testing their
computer and command systems, as coercion.

In a sign that Washington may be softening its stance,
Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, the top U.S.
negotiator, said on Tuesday the issue of the North having a
civilian nuclear plan would not break a deal.

“I think we can come up with something,” Hill told
reporters.

North Korea’s insistence on the right to develop peaceful
nuclear energy was the key sticking point in the last round of
talks where the parties failed to agree to a joint statement.

U.S. officials have been skeptical about allowing North
Korea to pursue a nuclear program for energy production out of
concern that it might be used for military purposes.

Described by President Bush as part of an “axis of evil”
along with Iran and pre-war Iraq, North Korea said for the
first time this year it had nuclear weapons, arguing it needed
them to deter a hostile United States.