Top US negotiator to the six-party talks Christopher Hill
Wednesday said upcoming nuclear talks will focus on scheduling
working groups, voicing hope for completing the implementation of
second phase by the end of this year.
"All the parties concerned will try to schedule five working
groups and get these groups going," Hill told reporters before
leaving a hotel in downtown Beijing for a meeting with his Chinese
counterpart Wu Daiwei.
Reiterating goals for next steps, Hill said North Korea should
comprehensively declare all its nuclear facilities and disable all
existing nuclear facilities.
Hill said parties concerned will also try to complete the
implementation of second phase (of denuclearization) "by the end of
this year," adding "no agreement" has reached yet.
"We get a long road ahead of us," he said.
Hill was referring to the stage in a February 13 joint document
which requires North Korea to declare all its nuclear programs and
disable all existing nuclear facilities.
"My own view is we ought to wrap this up in the calendar year of
2007," Hill told reporters on Monday evening after separate
meetings with North Korea and Russian chief negotiators, saying all
parties "in the same ballpark".
The fresh six-party talks on the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue
on Wednesday afternoon will gather chief negotiators from China,
North Korea, the United States, the Republic of Korea, Russia and
Japan.
There will be no opening ceremony for Wednesday's meeting. Top
negotiators will go through the main agenda in a "down to earth"
manner, including evaluating the implementation of the February
joint document and discussing what to do in the next phase.
(Xinhua News Agency July 18, 2007)
