Chief nuclear negotiators from North Korea and the US Tuesday
afternoon held their first one-on-one discussions on the sidelines
of the
six-party talks. The high-level negotiations
entered a second day yesterday with discussions focused on
implementing a disarmament pledge signed by North Korea last year.
"Chief North Korean negotiator Kim Kye-gwan and his US
counterpart Christopher Hill held their bilateral meeting yesterday
afternoon in Diaoyutai State Guesthouse," the Chinese press center
said, without releasing more details.
The atmosphere there "was not so harsh," said an anonymous
Japanese official.
North Korea also met individually with China, Russia and South
Korea but not Japan, a South Korean official said on condition of
anonymity.
"The gap in differing opinions is being narrowed little by
little," the official said. "There are still many differences, but
we expect to narrow the gap even more tomorrow."
The meeting between Kim and Hill coincided with a separate
meeting between the two countries' financial delegations in
Beijing.
President of North Korea's Foreign Trade Bank, O Kwang-chol,
held three-hour talks with Daniel Glaser, US Treasury Department's
deputy assistant secretary for terrorist financing and financial
crimes, at the US embassy yesterday afternoon. The meeting was held
to address the US campaign to isolate North Korea from the
international banking system, the key stumbling block blamed for
Pyongyang's 13-month boycott of nuclear talks.
"The financial talks went on in a friendly manner, but did not
produce new proposals," a South Korean official said late
yesterday.
Hopeful about the financial talks, Chinese Foreign Ministry
spokesman Qin Gang said yesterday afternoon that "the US-North
Korea sanction issue would be properly resolved through the
bilateral meeting, and positive achievements might come out."
Pyongyang stayed away from the nuclear talks since November
2005, claiming Washington remained hostile to North Korea after it
blacklisted a Macao bank where North Korea deposited some US$24
million.
The US alleged the bank was complicit in North Korea's
counterfeiting of US$100 bills and money laundering to sell weapons
of mass destruction. American officials have pressed other
countries to bar North Korean accounts, slamming all the country's
transactions as suspicious.
However, North Korea agreed to return to the nuclear talks
shortly after its October 9 nuclear test because the US said it
could discuss the financial issue in separate meetings.
It is unlikely that the US will simply remove restrictions as
Pyongyang demands, since it views them as a legal matter against
criminal activity.
Hailing the financial talks "a great opportunity for us to have
initial exchange of views," Glaser said late yesterday that he and
his North Korean counterparts will continue financial talks at the
North Korean embassy today.
He warned that a long-term process is needed if the discussions
are to be productive.
(Xinhua News Agency, China Daily December 20, 2006)