CHINA: Deadline to be set for North Korea nuclear disarmament, talks wrap

Envoys seeking to end North Korea's nuclear arms ambitions were hopeful of forging agreement on Thursday (July 19) on a deadline for crippling the North's atomic facilities and exposing its trove of nuclear secrets. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) announced on Wednesday (July 18) that North Korea had now shut five main nuclear facilities at Yongbyon. They include a reactor and an atomic fuel reprocessing plant that can extract the plutonium Pyongyang used for its first nuclear test blast last October. Six-party talks in Beijing are aiming to set a date for completing the second phase of the disarmament deal -- permanently "disabling" the Yongbyon complex and receiving a full declaration of North Korea's nuclear arms activities. Some negotiators were hopeful on Thursday of a deal, possibly setting the end of 2007 as a deadline. But Japanese diplomats said the talks would likely spill over into Friday (July 20). "I think there is a feeling that there is a consensus among the six groups as to the sort of target frame for completing these talks so I think that will be reflected in the Chinese statement," said Christopher Hill. "By and large I think everyone feels that we did OK in the first phase, with the understanding that we missed just about every deadline, and we don't want to do that any more so I guess we have to be careful about deadlines. But if you don't have deadlines you never get stuff done, so we have to balance that," added Hill. The talks have brought together North and South Korea, the United States, Japan, Russia and China since 2003, but concrete progress had eluded them. However, in February, North Korea agreed to close Yongbyon in return for 50,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil, which began moving there from South Korea last week. South Korea would send a third shipment of heavy fuel oil on Friday, an official in Seoul told reporters. South Korean envoy Chun Yung-woo said the North seemed open to agreement. "North Korea demonstrated a practical and actual approach," he said, adding "If they stay that way, it will help set a specific action plan". Under the next phase of the agreement, North Korea will receive 950,000 tonnes of oil in return for coming clean on its nuclear secrets. Yet Japanese negotiator to the talks, Kenichiro Sasae, refused to speculate on the possible outcome of Thursday's talks. He stressed that the agreements for the next phase were dependent on North Korea's reactions. "It all hinges on how specifically North Korea will present its proposals and ideas about the implementation (of next-phrase measures)," he said.

ITN Source | July 19, 2007

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