Preparations ahead of resumption of nuclear talks
(AFP)
Updated: 2005-09-12 14:47

Last minute preparations were underway ahead of the resumption of talks aimed at denuclearising the Korean peninsula, with the United States and North Korea showing few signs of relaxing their positions.

Despite a flurry of diplomatic activity during five weeks of recess, no clear signals have emerged that the fourth round of talks restarting Tuesday will be any different from the past ones, which all ended inconclusively.

"What North Korea has to do is get out of the nuclear business," Christopher Hill, chief US envoy to the six-party talks, said Friday ahead of a visit to Seoul Monday.

"Nuclear weapons, nuclear programs are not something that one should leave in an ambiguous state," he said.

Hill is due to meet later Monday with South Korea's top negotiator to the talks Song Min-soon, and Vice Foreign Minister Lee Tae-sik, to coordinate their positions, Yonhap news agency reported.

Along with delegates from South Korea, North Korea, Japan and Russia, he will fly into Beijing Tuesday to reconvene the talks, hosted by China, that broke up on August 7 after two weeks of intense negotiations.

The six participating nations will restart discussions by reviewing a draft statement, outlined by China, on the principles of how to denuclearise the Korean peninsula, diplomats said. The talks will be open-ended.

North Korea has used the break to reinforce its insistence that it has the "unconditional right" to use nuclear programs for peaceful purposes, the main point that has prevented significant developments.

It also stepped up the rhetoric over the weekend on its belief that the US was planning to attack, saying South Korean troops serving in Iraq were engaged in US preparations to wage war against the North.

The United States has repeatedly said it has no intention of doing this.

Washington says the North should not exercise the right to peaceful nuclear facilities as Pyongyang has acknowledged using its civilian program in the past as a cover for making weapons.

Hill argued that there is little need for Pyongyang to maintain civilian programs as South Korea has pledged to provide electricity to its northern neighbor.

"If this is about energy, we've got a very good proposal for that," he said, adding that North Korea "has had trouble keeping peaceful programs peaceful," referring to a 1994 deal known as the Agreed Framework that turned sour.

Under the 1994 deal, the United States agreed to provide fuel for North Korea until an international consortium built light water reactors to produce power.

But their construction has been suspended amid the nuclear standoff, which flared in October 2002 when the US accused the North of developing a secret uranium-enrichment program.

Pyongyang has denied the US charges but declared in February this year that it had already built nuclear bombs.

Despite the seemingly entrenched positions, analysts said it was possible the US could agree to recognise that North Korea has a right as a sovereign state to civilian nuclear programs, in return for a verification mechanism.

But it will not likely happen at this round of talks.

"It will take time and there will be no immediate breakthroughs," said Joseph Cheng, a North Asia expert at City University of Hong kong. "But someone has to take the first step."

China has urged the main protagonists to "seize the opportunity" and find "a commonly acceptable solution", but its calls have so far fallen on deaf ears.