The participants at next week's talks on disarming North Korea's nuclear weapons program must focus on building mutual trust for the negotiations to move forward, China said yesterday.
A South Korean newspaper reported that North Korea has conveyed to the US that it is willing to shut down a key nuclear reactor and accept UN inspections if certain conditions are met.
North Korea walked away from the talks -- which also include China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the US -- 13 months ago. But negotiations are set to resume on Monday in Beijing.
"We hope the six-party talks can move forward and make achievements, but it requires the joint efforts of the parties concerned ... and in the final analysis what we need is to build mutual trust among the relevant countries," Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang (
He said progress on the "complex and sensitive" issue would demand "calm, patience, time and compromise," but gave no specifics.
The planned talks currently have no fixed end date and will be flexible in format, including bilateral and multilateral talks between parties, Qin said.
"As long as we have the will and desire, there can be contact and exchanges in all forms," Qin said.
South Korea's Hankook Ilbo newspaper reported yesterday that North Korea has said it will close the five-megawatt reactor in its main nuclear complex in Yongbyon and accept inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency if the US gives it energy aid and lifts financial restrictions against it.
Reporting from Washington and citing an unidentified US State Department official, the paper said that the communist regime conveyed its position to US officials via China in the course of setting a date for the resumption of six-party talks.
"We have the minimum hope that North Korea will not come [to the nuclear talks] empty-handed," the US State Department official was quoted as saying.
North Korea agreed at the close of the last session of talks in September last year to abandon its nuclear program. But Washington later imposed financial sanctions against a Macau-based bank on suspicions it was laundering counterfeit money for the North Koreans. Angered by the move, Pyongyang withdrew from the talks two months later.
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