hankyoreh

South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-soon on Thursday played down continuing reports alleging North Korea-Syria nuclear cooperation, saying they were not affecting negotiations under way to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula.

"There are no new concerns raised from factors outside of the six-party talks," Song told reporters outside the U.S. State Department. The foreign minister had come to Washington briefly from the United Nations to attend a conference on climate change.

Song made it a point that no U.S. officials have yet confirmed the allegations, that the suspicions have been restricted to press reports.

"This is not a situation in which press reports are impacting the talks," he said.

Envoys from South and North Korea, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan are gathered in Beijing for a new round of six-party talks aimed ultimately at dismantling Pyongyang's nuclear weapons and programs.

This week's round tackles North Korea's disablement of its atomic facilities and declaration of its nuclear stockpile.

U.S. chief negotiator Christopher Hill said the first day of talks on Thursday resulted in agreement "on most of the disablement measures," setting a positive tone to the session that opened as a possible Pyongyang-Damascus nuclear link loomed overhead.

The suspicions emerged after a mysterious Israeli air incursion into Syria early this month, the motive for which is yet to be explained by Israel. Media reports, mostly citing secondhand sources, suggested the attack was on a Syrian nuclear facility that North Korea was helping to build.

Song would not say whether the Syria issue would be discussed at this week's talks.

"But what I can say for sure is that it is not affecting the negotiations," he said.


WASHINGTON, Sept. 27 (Yonhap)