U.S. envoy expects 6PT activities in next couple of weeks

Posted on : 2008-04-11 08:54 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST

The top U.S. nuclear envoy said Thursday there will be a flurry of activities in the "next couple of weeks" to implement various elements agreed to with his North Korean counterpart in Singapore this week.

Christopher Hill, assistant secretary of state, said the current phase of the six-party talks involves a "package" of different steps.

"I think we have an understanding on how to put that package together. We will be working very hard on that in the next couple of weeks," he told reporters after a closed-door briefing to the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

"We definitely have a plan how we are going to pursue these things," said Hill, including travels to the Asian region by U.S.

officials.

Some of the activities will take place in a "few days," he said.

The U.S. envoy returned Wednesday evening after meeting the North Korean nuclear envoy, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan, to break the impasse on the multinational forum aimed at denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula.

South and North Korea, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan make up what is known as the six-party talks that over the last two and a half years signed on to a series of deals leading eventually to the dismantlement of Pyongyang's atomic weapons and programs.

The process has been idled since the North missed the Dec. 31, 2007, deadline to submit a declaration detailing its inventory of fissile material, nuclear facilities and any proliferation activities.

A U.S.-North Korea meeting in Geneva last month came close to a deal, but Kim backed out at the last minute, unable to get approval from his government.

Hill expressed satisfaction with the results of the Singapore meeting. "We've had a tough problem, and I think we've been able to figure out a way forward on this," he said.

The envoy repeatedly emphasized that the second phase of the denuclearization agreements involved a package of different elements, suggesting that the U.S. would be ready to act on its promised incentives to Pyongyang.

The second phase sequences disabling of North Korea's main reactor and provision of the declaration, and the U.S. starting the process to remove Pyongyang from the State Department's list of terrorism-sponsoring states. Washington would also lift sanctions on the North imposed under the Trading with the Enemy Act.

At the State Department, spokesman Sean McCormack reaffirmed that the U.S., along with other members of the six-party talks, is prepared "to fulfill our obligations, as North Korea fulfills its obligations."

Thursday's House briefing was heard by most of the committee members and their staff.

"I think it went okay," said Hill. "They asked very fair questions."

April 10 (Yonhap)

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