With the arrival of US and Japanese delegations on Sunday
afternoon, all the five foreign delegations have converged in
Beijing for the second phase of the fifth-round six-party talks.
Before the talks to be formally launched on Monday morning, the
six delegations are expected to hold several bilateral
consultations later on Sunday, making final preparations for the
Monday's resumption.
Both the US and Japanese sides will hold bilateral talks with
China, the Republic of Korea (ROK) and Russia, respectively, later
on Sunday.
The DPRK (the Democratic People's Republic of Korea) needs to
get serious about the denuclearization issue, said US chief
negotiator Christopher Hill upon his arrival.
"If they want to get out of the sanctions, they should
denuclearize," Hill added.
Hill and his delegation came by the same plane with the Japanese
delegation which is headed by Kenichiro Sasae, director-general for
Asian and Oceanian Affairs of Japanese Foreign Ministry.
Before arriving in Beijing, Hill and Sasae had talks in Tokyo on
Saturday, and the two sides agreed that the fate of the upcoming
multilateral talks depends on whether the DPRK takes concrete steps
for denuclearization.
"It is important that through this round of talks the DPRK will
make a concrete step towards denuclearization," said Sasae when
arriving at hotel.
"In order to reach this goal, Japan will do its best and take
suitable policies to attend the talks," Sasae added.
The Russian delegation arrived in Beijing on Sunday morning and
the delegations from DPRK and ROK have arrived here Saturday.
Launched in 2003, the six-party talks have been held for five
rounds. However, the talks have remained on hold since the DPRK
walked out of the negotiations more than a year ago in response to
US sanctions.
Over the past 13 months, the parties concerned have been engaged
in a flurry of diplomatic activities in order to resume the
talks.
(Xinhua News Agency December 17, 2006)