China Information

DPRK, ROK delegations arrive in Beijing for talks

A delegation of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) arrived in the Chinese capital Saturday morning for the second phase of the fifth-round six-party talks.
The DPRK delegation is headed by Kim Kye-gwan, DPRK's vice foreign minister.
Kim said upon his arrival that the DPRK was not optimistic about the outlook of the upcoming round of talks, and the United States should change its hostile policy towards the DPRK to a peaceful co-existence policy.
He said the DPRK is willing to discuss other contents of the September joint statement except the nuclear weapons during the new round of six-party talks, under the circumstances that the United States gives up its sanctions against the DPRK.
Kim said the DPRK will not give up the nuclear weapons, which are against the U.S. invasion and threat.
The DPRK delegation is the first one that has arrived in Beijing. The delegation of the Republic of Korea (ROK) is scheduled to arrive Saturday afternoon. The Russian, U.S. and Japanese delegations will arrive on Sunday.
Aimed at resolving the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula, the upcoming six-party talks, also involving China, the United States, the ROK, Russia and Japan, will resume in Beijing on Dec. 18.
Sources said the delegation of the ROK, headed by chief negotiator Chun Yung Woo would arrive in Beijing in the afternoon.
Christopher Hill, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs and the top U.S. negotiator on the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue will visit Japan on Saturday to talk with his Japanese counterpart before the resumption of the talks, the Kyodo News reported.
The U.S. and the Japanese delegations are scheduled to get to Beijing on Sunday.
Launched in 2003, the six-party talks are aimed at finding a solution to the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue. However, the talks have remained stalled since the DPRK walked out of the negotiations more than a year ago due to U.S. sanctions against it.
Over the past 13 months, the parties concerned have been engaged in a flurry of diplomatic activities in order to move on the talks.
At the end of October, as proposed by China, the heads of delegation to the six-party talks from China, the DPRK and the United States had an informal meeting in Beijing, at which they agreed to hold the six-party talks soon at a time convenient to all parties,
In late November, chief negotiators of the DPRK, the United States, the ROK and Japan came to Beijing and laid the groundwork for the resumption of the talks.

posted by china @ 4:28 AM