hankyoreh

Six-nation talks on persuading North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program will reopen early next month, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.

Jiang Yu, a spokesman for the ministry, told a regular press briefing that the nuclear disarmament talks will "resume Feb. 8."

She did not give any other details.

The new round of the talks, involving the two Koreas, the U.S., Japan, Russia and host China, comes amid heightened hope of an agreement on ways to implement a 2005 statement in which the communist North agreed to abandon its nuclear ambitions in return for economic and diplomatic benefits.

Seoul welcomed the resumption of talks and called for "tangible progress" in the next round.

"The (South Korean) government hopes the involved parties will be able to produce substantial progress toward implementing the early steps of the Sept. 19 joint statement," Foreign Ministry spokesman Cho Hee-yong told reporters.

The September statement refers to a 2005 agreement in which the North agreed to give up its nuclear ambition in return for economic benefits and security guarantees.

The latest round of the Beijing-based nuclear talks was held in December after a 13-month hiatus, but it ended without any significant progress.

North Korean negotiators had refused to discuss the nuclear issue, demanding the United States to first remove the financial sanctions it imposed in September 2005 on a Macau bank suspected of laundering the North's illicit funds.

Expectations of an agreement in the nuclear disarmament talks have recently been raised following a three-day meeting earlier this month in Berlin between top nuclear negotiators from Washington and Pyongyang.

While visiting Seoul following his Berlin trip, the chief U.S. nuclear negotiator, Christopher Hill, said he and his North Korean counterpart Kim Kye-gwan had agreed "on a number of issues."

Talks between financial officials from the U.S. and North Korea also reconvened in Beijing earlier Tuesday to discuss removing the U.S. sanctions on the communist North.

Daniel Glaser, the lead U.S. delegate in the financial talks, said he hoped to see "progress" from this week's talks with his North Korean counterpart O Kwang-chol, president of the North's Foreign Trade Bank.

"We are prepared to go through with these talks for as long as it takes to get through our agenda," the Treasury's deputy assistant secretary for terrorist financing and financial crimes told reporters in Beijing.

The first day of the financial discussions convened at the U.S. embassy in the Chinese capital at 3 p.m.


Beijing/Seoul, Jan. 30 (Yonhap News)