US, North Korea to meet in Geneva Sept 1-2

By Staff
|
Google Oneindia News

WASHINGTON, Aug 27 (Reuters) The United States and North Korea will hold talks on normalizing their relations on September 1-2 in Geneva, the US State Department today said.

The meeting of the US-North Korea working group is called for under a multilateral agreement in which North Korea agreed to give up its nuclear weapons programs in exchange for the prospect of economic and diplomatic benefits.

The so-called six-party agreement was negotiated among the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States.

US State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos announced the Geneva meeting, which had been expected to take place by the end of August. He gave no details on who will represent the United States or exactly what will be discussed.

Under a February 13 six-party deal, the United States and North Korea agreed to start talks aimed at ''resolving pending bilateral issues and moving toward full diplomatic relations.'' North Korea in July shut its Yongbyon reactor complex that produces weapons-grade plutonium and received 50,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil under the first phase of the deal.

However, the next steps of the agreement -- which call for Pyongyang to provide a complete declaration of all its nuclear programs and to disable all existing nuclear facilities -- are expected to be much more difficult to carry out.

REUTERS SY KP2055

For Daily Alerts
Get Instant News Updates
Enable
x
Notification Settings X
Time Settings
Done
Clear Notification X
Do you want to clear all the notifications from your inbox?
Settings X
X