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Six-party nuke talks lead to agreement
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-07-12 17:01
Beijing - Negotiators from six nations have agreed on steps to verify Korean Peninsular denuclearization, opening the final phase in efforts to rid the Pyongyang of nuclear weapons.
The agreement, reached Saturday after three days of talks, mapped out a timetable for economic and energy assistance along with the disablement of the Yongbyon nuclear facilities, stressing the disablement and assistance should go "in parallel". It said the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) would work to finish disabling its biggest nuclear facility by the end of October 2008. The United States and Russia will provide the remaining heavy fuel oil (HFO) assistance to the DPRK before the same time. Some specifics of the verification remained to be worked out, but experts and diplomats from the six nations hoped to agree on those steps by early September, said US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill. "We would like the protocol to be reached within 45 days and secondly to begin verification within 45 days. We're anticipating that and we don't see any obstacles," Hill told reporters after the talks. The agreement, if not yet complete, signals the start of the final phase of the yearslong negotiations to get Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons program. Beyond the October deadline for disabling its main facility at Yongbyon, the agreement did not set a timetable for full disarmament. But the administration of US President George W. Bush is believed to be eager to see DPRK disarmed before Bush leaves office in January. The agreement also allows the nuclear inspectors to draw on the expertise of the International Atomic Energy Agency to help in verification. Earlier Saturday, the US envoy said negotiators wanted verification measures of the kind used in other countries.
"We're not asking for anything unusual. We're asking for things that are done all over the world. We want a basically standard kind of package on how you verify this type of nuclear program," Hill said. In response to DPRK's nuclear declaration, the United States announced it would remove the country from a list of state sponsors of terrorism and relax some economic sanctions against it. DPRK blew up the cooling tower at Yongbyon and allowed TV broadcasts of the event. The steps paved the way for the resumption of the six-nation meetings, which also includes Japan, Russia and South Korea. Those talks had been on hold since last October. The nuclear standoff began in late 2002 when the US accused Pyongyang of seeking to secretly enrich uranium in violation of a 1994 disarmament deal. |
