US chief negotiator Christopher Hill to the six-party talks aimed at resolving the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue on Thursday morning said the one-week delay of the talks does not affect the overall atmosphere.

According to Hill, this fresh phase of the six-party talks was previously scheduled to be held in last week. He said the one-week delay was "not too bad."

Hill said the second phase of the sixth round of the talks would be started at four o'clock on Thursday afternoon, prior to which the US delegation would respectively meet with the other five delegations to the talks, namely North and South Korean, the Chinese, the Russian and the Japanese delegations.

On the planned meeting with the North Korean delegation, Hill said "there were some issues that the two parties did not have a chance to stir," adding that they would try to figure out what to do with that "big gap."

Hill noted that during the opening meeting of the fresh round of the talks, China would probably lay out a schedule for the next couple of days and part of the schedule would be on hearing the report of all working groups and the report from the expert team which had been to North Korea for a study on the denuclearization arrangements earlier this month.

"That will obviously take up some time," Hill added.

(Xinhua News Agency September 27, 2007)