The US chief negotiator to the six-party talks Christopher
Hill?will come to South Korea for consultations over the
nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula, reported South Korean major
news agency Yonhap on Sunday.
Hill is to arrive at Seoul on Monday, a day before the second
stage of the fourth round six-party nuclear talks are to resume in
Beijing on Tuesday.
In Seoul, Hill, who also serves as assistant secretary of state
for East Asian and Pacific affairs, will meet South Korean top
negotiator to the talks Song Min-soon, and Vice Foreign Minister
Lee Tae-sik, Yonhap quoted sources at the South Korean Foreign
Ministry as saying.
Hill is scheduled to leave for Beijing early Tuesday aboard the
same airplane with the South Korean delegation.
The six participants of the talks, China, North Korea, the US,
Russia, South Korea and Japan, originally agreed to restart the
talks in the week begins with August 29 after three-week
recess.
However resumption date of the negotiations was put off two
weeks at the request of North Korean side.
In the first phase of the fourth round of the talks held in late
July and early August, the US and North Korea had difference over
the scope of the North Korean nuclear programs that should be
dismantled.
The US insists that North Korea should give up all the nuclear
programs, including the peaceful one. However, North Korea holds it
should be granted of the right on peaceful utilization of nuclear
power.
South Korean government clarified its standing over the issue
during the recess of the fourth round of the six-party talks.
It said if North Korea scraps the nuclear weapon program,
returns to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, accepts inspection
of the International Atomic Energy Agency, North Korea could be
allowed to develop peaceful nuclear program.
(Xinhua News Agency September 11, 2005)