Delegates from six countries resumed talks yesterday on North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, looking at a Chinese proposal on how to verify the secretive regime’s claims about its atomic program.
A dispute over verification has been the latest snag in the long-running negotiations intended to bring an end to the nuclear activities of North Korea, which tested an atomic bomb in 2006.
The regime appeared to accept the verification process in October as part of a broader agreement to disable its nuclear facilities, but has since said it will not let international inspectors take test samples out of the country.
“We want to complete a verification protocol,” said Christopher Hill, the top US envoy to the negotiations, which have offered the North energy aid and diplomatic concessions in exchanging for stopping its atomic program.
“We also want to complete a schedule for energy and a schedule for disablement,” Hill said before yesterday’s talks.
“Our plan is to get all three done,” he said.
Delegates said China had presented a proposal for the verification process at the start of the day’s talks.
China engaged in a series of one-on-one consultations with the other participants to discuss the draft, as the envoys and their teams prepared for “a long day,” diplomatic sources said.
“[Verification] is the issue that the parties are concentrating their discussions on,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao (劉建超) told a regular briefing.
“China is working with the rest of the parties [and is] proposing initiatives. The parties have also had in-depth discussion around these proposals and initiatives,” he said.
The latest round of negotiations began in Beijing on Monday, likely marking a last bid by the outgoing George W. Bush administration to tackle one of the most intractable items on its diplomatic agenda.
The talks, which were launched in 2003, bring together North and South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the US.
The countries appeared to make a breakthrough last year, under which Pyongyang agreed to disable facilities at its plutonium-producing Yongbyon nuclear complex and reveal its atomic activities.
The deal — which also called for the delivery of 1 million tonnes of fuel oil or energy aid of equivalent value — has hit multiple snags.
But in October, after an apparent agreement on verification procedures, the US said it would drop North Korea from a terrorism blacklist, and the North reversed plans to reactivate its plutonium-producing nuclear plants.
“We need to have intense discussions about verification,” the chief South Korean delegate to the talks, Kim Sook, told reporters before yesterday’s session.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘BODIES EVERYWHERE’: The incident occurred at a Filipino festival celebrating an anti-colonial leader, with the driver described as a ‘lone suspect’ known to police Canadian police arrested a man on Saturday after a car plowed into a street party in the western Canadian city of Vancouver, killing a number of people. Authorities said the incident happened shortly after 8pm in Vancouver’s Sunset on Fraser neighborhood as members of the Filipino community gathered to celebrate Lapu Lapu Day. The festival, which commemorates a Filipino anti-colonial leader from the 16th century, falls this year on the weekend before Canada’s election. A 30-year-old local man was arrested at the scene, Vancouver police wrote on X. The driver was a “lone suspect” known to police, a police spokesperson told journalists at the
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has unveiled a new naval destroyer, claiming it as a significant advancement toward his goal of expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, state media said yesterday. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim attended the launching ceremony for the 5,000-tonne warship on Friday at the western port of Nampo. Kim framed the arms buildup as a response to perceived threats from the US and its allies in Asia, who have been expanding joint military exercises amid rising tensions over the North’s nuclear program. He added that the acquisition
RSS