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North Korea nuclear talks likely early next week: Seoul

Posted on: Tuesday, 6 September 2005, 22:27 CDT

SEOUL (Reuters) - Six-country talks aimed at negotiating an end to North Korea's nuclear weapons programmes are likely to restart early next week and could accomplish progress, South Korea's foreign minister said on Wednesday.

North Korea has told the host of the talks, China, that it is willing to return to the table on September 13, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said, quoting an official in Seoul, on Tuesday.

"We expect the second session of the fourth round of the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear programmes to resume early next week," Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon told reporters.

China is currently consulting with the other parties and will soon announce the date, Ban said.

Despite a deadlock on key issues that cut short the previous session of the talks on August 7, there was no change to South Korea's position that North Korea must give up all its nuclear programmes, he said.

"But the countries will continue the talks without setting the end-date as long as there is a possibility of progress," he said.

Negotiators from South and North Korea, the United States, Japan, Russia and China, went through several drafts of a broad set of principles in 13 days of discussions on dismantling the North's nuclear programmes in return for aid and security guarantees.

But the talks ended inconclusively because North Korea insisted on the right to a civilian nuclear programme. Washington is wary that Pyongyang would use such a programme as a ruse to develop nuclear weapons.

Source: REUTERS

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