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Day Two of North Korea Talks to Try to Create Basis for Agreement

Posted on: Wednesday, 14 September 2005, 00:00 CDT

Text of report in English by Japanese news agency Kyodo

Beijing, 14 September: Delegates from six countries holding talks on North Korea's nuclear programmes were set to begin a series of bilateral talks on Wednesday [14 September] designed to reach an agreement on joint principles for denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula.

The United States and North Korea, the main protagonists in the six-party talks, were expected to hold bilateral talks in the afternoon.

The other participants - South Korea, China, Japan and Russia - were also expected to meet bilaterally as the negotiations entered a stage of substantive discussions.

The delegates resumed the fourth round of talks on Tuesday after a five-week break that was prompted by a stalemate over the scope of North Korea's denuclearization.

A Japanese government official said late Tuesday that the participants confirmed that they should meet bilaterally for the first few days of the talks to "deepen understanding towards each other's positions and create a basis for agreement".

Most of the differences that prompted the recess remained unresolved.

North Korea's chief delegate Kim Kye-gwan was quoted as telling China's state-run Xinhua News Agency on Tuesday that the country has the right to carry out peaceful nuclear activities.

Pyongyang has also insisted that it be provided with light-water nuclear reactors promised in a 1994 agreement with the United States.

The United States, meanwhile, has called for the North to abandon all nuclear programmes, including civilian ones. It has also voiced objections towards the light-water reactors, saying that the North has in the past turned peaceful facilities into weapon-producing ones.

The light-water reactors, along with oil shipments from the United States, were promised to North Korea under the 1994 Agreed Framework in return for the North freezing and eventually dismantling its graphite-moderated nuclear facilities.

Graphite reactors can produce weapons-grade material more easily than the light-water reactors, which are considered safer.

The focus of the current round of talks is on whether the countries can produce the joint statement of principles that had eluded them in the 13 days of talks from July.

"The purpose of this session is to achieve this statement of agreed principles," US chief delegate Christopher Hill said late Tuesday.

"We felt we had a lot of common points last time, albeit we did not reach the objective. The point of this session would be to achieve that objective," he said.

Source: BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific

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