Envoys arrive in China to set up North Korea talks

By Staff
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Google Oneindia News

BEIJING, Nov 27 (Reuters) US and South Korean envoys landed in Beijing today to prepare for six-party talks on ending North Korea's nuclear weapons programme which are expected to resume next month.

Communist North Korea agreed to return to the table after its October 9 underground nuclear test triggered widespread international condemnation and UN-backed sanctions.

US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill's visit to Beijing is his second in as many weeks. He has said he expects the six-way talks, which Pyongyang has boycotted for the past year, to resume in mid-December.

''The issue for us is to make sure we are extremely well planned and ready for the six-party talks which we do anticipate will get going at some point very soon,'' Hill said on arrival.

''But we will consult with our Chinese hosts again about a date,'' he told reporters.

Seoul's chief negotiator, Chun Yung-woo, had also arrived in Beijing, Xinhua news agency said.

The six-party discussions bring together the two Koreas, the United States, host China, Japan and Russia.

North Korea agreed to return to the talks after Washington said it was willing to address its concerns about financial restrictions, tightened in September 2005 when US regulators named a Macau bank as a conduit for illicit North Korean cash from currency counterfeiting and drug trafficking.

US and South Korean officials have said the new round of talks must make substantive progress on implementing an agreement in principle reached last year or risk losing credibility.

China is urging North Korean envoy Kim Kye-gwan to come to Beijing tomorrow, a Japanese government source said.

Japan's top negotiator in the talks, Kenichiro Sasae, arrived in Beijing late yesterday to meet Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei.

Customs data showed today that Chinese exports of crude oil to isolated and energy-hungry North Korea had resumed in October, after a September halt which raised questions about Beijing's relations with its neighbour.

Xia Liping, a regional security expert at the Shanghai Institute for International Studies, a government thank-tank, told Reuters that China had reduced oil and grain shipments to North Korea from July.

''After the missile launchings, China punished North Korea for hurting China's fundamental interests,'' Xia said, referring to the North's July 5 missile tests.

''On the other hand, China has always sought to persuade North Korea to return to the six-party talks to seek a negotiated solution to its problems.'' REUTERS PB BD1438

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