Negotiators to the six-party talks convened their second working
group meeting on Korean Peninsula denuclearization Thursday
afternoon, focusing on the definition of disablement of Korean
nuclear programs.
"Most of our meetings had to do with disablement, and we are
trying to see whether we can come up with some common understanding
of disablement, as you can imagine there are many ways to disable
nuclear weapons," US chief envoy Christopher Hill told reporters
Thursday evening.
In Shenyang, capital of northeast China's Liaoning Province,
delegates from China, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea
(DPRK), the United States, the Republic of Korea (ROK), Russia and
Japan, held the first plenary session of the second
denuclearization working group meeting.
Prior to that, the six sides have had bilateral consultations
respectively.
Hill said DPRK experts told the other sides in the plenary
meeting of the scope and task of the disablement, the declaration
and how they see that.
Lim Sungnam, deputy negotiator of the ROK delegation to the
working group meeting, said the DPRK side clearly reaffirmed their
stances as to declare their nuclear programs in a comprehensive
way, as well as their view of the objects and ways of
disablement.
"They made positive statement, but we need to be specific," Hill
said. He added that the declaration "needs to involve all nuclear
programs and nuclear materials". "We need to make sure we have some
clarity on that."
According to Japanese chief delegate to the working group
meeting Akio Suda, experts from all sides are still in discussion
this evening on the technical issues.
"There will be lots of work to be done. We do have to come up
with some common definition of disablement," said Hill.
He said Friday will be "a busy day", as there will be a lot of
multilateral and bilateral experts meetings.
"This is a basis to make progress," Hill said, who is positive
to find some common grounds in Friday's meeting, "or at least what
the differences are."
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei, who chaired the meeting,
said in his opening remarks Thursday afternoon the Chinese
delegation is "prepared to work with all other delegations to
ensure that our session will make positive results."
The two-day meeting, one of the five working group meetings
under a February agreement of the six-party talks, came after
Pyongyang's shut-down and sealing of its Yongbyon nuclear facility
in July and its acceptance of verification of the International
Atomic Energy Agency.
The chief delegates to the six-party talks agreed in their last
meeting in July to hold the meetings of the five working groups in
August.
The Shenyang meeting was held days after the working group
meeting of economy and energy cooperation at the truce village of
Panmunjom on Korean Peninsula from August 7 to 8, and is part of
the efforts to lay ground works for a second session of the 6th
round of six-party talks in early September and the ministerial
meeting afterwards. The first meeting of the denuclearization
working group was held in Beijing on March 17 and 18 ahead of the
sixth round of talks.
(Xinhua News Agency August 16, 2007)
