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U.S., N. Korea Make Progress on Nuclear Negotiations NewsMax.com WiresWASHINGTON -- The drive for a six-nation agreement to end North Korea's nuclear weapons program is picking up speed. "There is no agreement yet," chief U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill said Tuesday.
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But Hill scheduled dinner with a senior Chinese official, South Korea's foreign minister had a meeting planned with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and a Chinese delegation is due to go to Pyongyang this week to set a date for a resumption of negotiations. Also, Hill said, U.S. and North Korean diplomats will hold another meeting in New York later this week. And he said the United States had offered North Korea a package of compensation that includes civilian power. He said the aim also was to set a basis for wider accords, including a formal end to the Korean War more than 60 years ago. Hill said one point of disagreement is whether North Korea is to be permitted, at least in principle, to develop civilian nuclear energy. Hill said the United States did not think that was necessary since North Korea's energy needs would be met. "We have a set of measures that make it unnecessary for them to have a nuclear program," he told reporters over breakfast. But he said South Korea and Russia were taking the view North Korea should have that right, provided it agrees to international inspection and accepts international accords. Even so, Hill said, no one has come forward to offer to build civilian reactors for North Korea. The issue, Hill said, was not a "show-stopper," meaning it would not stop an overall agreement to end North Korea's nuclear weapons program. With a resumption of full-scale negotiations expected at the end of the month, three exchanges with the North Koreans were held over the past week. The stepped-up diplomacy, which included new U.S. contacts with China, follows assertions by South Korea's foreign minister that a breakthrough could be imminent in efforts to talk North Korea out of its nuclear weapons program. Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon, in Washington to see Rice, in a CNN interview raised the possibility of a trade-off that would give North Korea a license to pursue peaceful nuclear activities. However, this and any other concessions would require North Korea to dismantle all its nuclear weapons facilities and end a program that U.S. intelligence is convinced has already produced at least two bombs. While the Bush administration seeks to portray a united front with South Korea, Japan, China and Russia on the six-party talks, several of the U.S. partners seem more inclined to compromise. The administration, meanwhile, is urging China to put more pressure on Pyongyang. Hill held talks Monday with Cui Tiankai of the Chinese foreign ministry and planned to talk to South Korean and Japanese officials later in the week. "We're doing careful diplomatic preparations in anticipation of the beginning" of new negotiations in Beijing, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. Last week, McCormack said, there were two diplomatic exchanges between the United States and North Korea and another on Monday between U.S. diplomat Joseph DeTrani and a North Korean delegation to the United Nations. "I am not going to get into the details of the diplomatic exchange," McCormack said. "Only to say that it is part of the diplomatic process." However, he added that the negotiators are at work on the draft of a statement of principles that is designed to lead to an overall agreement.
© 2005 The Associated Press
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