Negotiations on North Korea’s nuclear program will resume this week for the first time in nine months, South Korea’s nuclear envoy said yesterday.
The talks have been on hold since October due to a dispute over North Korea’s obligation to declare its nuclear programs.
Host China plans to announce soon that the talks will resume tomorrow, Seoul’s chief nuclear negotiator Kim Sook said before he left for the Chinese capital for preparatory meetings.
The six-nation talks — which include China, Japan, Russia, the US and the two Koreas — are back on after Pyongyang submitted a partial declaration of its nuclear programs and made progress in disabling its main atomic facility.
The talks were expected to focus on how to verify the North’s nuclear list.
In response to the declaration, the US announced it would remove the North from a list of state sponsors of terrorism and relax some economic sanctions against the communist nation.
To demonstrate its commitment to disarm, Pyongyang destroyed the cooling tower at its main Yongbyon nuclear complex.
But signaling potential difficulties in the upcoming talks, the North said last week it will not take further steps to dismantle its nuclear program until the US and its other negotiating partners provide it with promised fuel oil and political benefits.
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said it is “not easy” and “will take time” to get North Korea to abandon its nuclear programs.
“We have to persuade the North to realize without fail” its nuclear dismantlement, Lee said in an interview with Japanese newspapers, according to the president’s office.
Lee, the South’s first conservative leader in a decade, also called the North’s nuclear declaration “insufficient” because it did not include details about atomic weapons.
Earlier yesterday, North Korea rejected any possibility of summit talks with the South though Lee said he was willing to meet to speed up the North’s dismantling of its nuclear programs.
Pyongyang became enraged as Lee took a harder line with his communist neighbors than previous administrations and said he would review previous summit agreements to see if they were financially feasible. The move has led to a suspension of all government-level dialogue between the two sides.
The North’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland said it was “preposterous” for Lee to suggest such a meeting, accusing Seoul’s conservative president of overturning previous agreements.
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