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“It’s a technical process, not negotiations.”

Christopher Hill, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, described this week’s working-group meetings as a technical process after arriving in Shenyang, China, to join the second round of meetings on North Korea’s nuclear program. Hill told reporters that he expected the meetings to go smoothly because the envoys will not try to reach a specific agreement.

North Korea dispatched Ri Gun, the director of U.S. affairs at the North Korean Foreign Ministry, to the Shenyang meetings instead of Kim Kye-gwan, the North’s chief negotiator in the six-party talks.

On August 13, the North’s negotiator Kim met with Hill in Beijing. North Korea and the United States are likely to meet in Berlin sometime in September to discuss ways to normalize bilateral relations.

While this week’s meetings were aimed at the technical aspects of dismantling North Korea’s nuclear facilities, the North’s Uranium Enrichment Program (UEP) is a very sensitive issue as well. Hill said efforts have been made to resolve the issue of enriched uranium and that the issue would be dealt with at future working-level meetings between North Korea and the United States, held to normalize ties between the two countries. The UEP program is at the core of suspicions surrounding the North’s nuclear weapons program. A South Korean negotiator told the Korean press that the North Korean envoy expressed North Korea’s willingness to declare the controversial UEP and resolve the UEP disputes.

The disablement of nuclear facilities is more than just a technical matter, however. North Korea wants something in return for disabling its nuclear facilities. During the meetings, North Korea expressed interest in receiving a light-water reactor in exchange for the disablement, people close to the meetings say. Chun Yung-woo, South Korea’s chief negotiator to the six-party talks, said “The specific implementation of the roadmap may be written at the six-party negotiations.”

This week’s working-group meetings have included a series of bilateral talks between North Korea and the United States, South and North Korea and North Korea and China. Chun, the South Korean chief delegate, had dinner with Hill on August 15 and held a bilateral meeting with Ri Gun, the North Korean delegate to the meetings, on August 16 before the plenary session. During the meeting with Ri, Chun is believed to have received word on the North’s intention to declare and disable its nuclear programs.