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North Korea Commits to Abandoning "All Nuclear Weapons"

Posted on: Monday, 19 September 2005, 03:00 CDT

Text of report in English by official Chinese news agency Xinhua (New China News Agency)

Beijing, 19 September: The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the United States undertook to respect each other's sovereignty, exist peacefully together, and take steps to normalize their relations subject to their respective bilateral policies, according to a joint statement issued here on Monday [19 September] at the fourth round of the six-party talks.

The DPRK is committed to abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programmes, the statement said.

The DPRK also pledges in the statement to return, at an early date, to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and to IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) safeguards.

In the statement, the United States affirmed that it has no nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula and has no intention to attack or invade the DPRK with nuclear or conventional weapons.

The fourth round of the six-party talks was held in Beijing between China, the DPRK, the United States, the Republic of Korea (ROK), Russia and Japan in two phases, respectively from 26 July to 7 August and from 13 to 19 September.

Heads of the delegations to the talks include Wu Dawei, Chinese vice foreign minister, Kim Kye-gwan, vice-minister of foreign affairs of the DPRK, Kenichiro Sasae, director-general for Asian and Oceanian affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, Song Min-soon, deputy minister of foreign affairs and trade of the ROK, Aleksandr Alekseyev, deputy minister of foreign affairs of the Russian Federation, and Christopher Hill, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs of the United States. Wu Dawei chaired the talks.

The joint statement was adopted "for the cause of peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia at large," says the document.

The six parties held, in the spirit of mutual respect and equality, serious and practical talks concerning the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula on the basis of the common understanding of the previous three rounds of talks, and reached the agreement, the document adds.

Source: BBC Monitoring Newsfile

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