Envoys head for China to set up North Korea talks

Beijing, Nov 27: US and South Korean envoys were due 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, which triggered widespread international condemnation and UN-backed sanctions.

U S Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill will visit the Chinese capital for the second time in as many weeks. He has said he expects the six-country talks, which Pyongyang has boycotted for the past year, to resume in mid-December.

South Korea's chief negotiator, Chun Yung-woo, was also expected in Beijing, according to a South Korean official.

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, which were tightened in September last year when U S regulators named a Macau bank as a conduit for illicit North Korean cash from currency counterfeiting and drug trafficking.

U S and South Korean officials have said the new round of negotiations will have to produce 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 on Sunday to meet Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei, China's official Xinhua news agency reported.

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

China sent 58,685 tonnes of crude to its impoverished neighbour in October, 67.7 per cent more than the same month of 2005 and the largest amount since April this year.

But shipments of key refined oil products -- diesel, gasoline and kerosene -- were all down from a year earlier, figures from the General Administration of Customs showed.

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 five 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.'' Xia said North Korea and the United States needed to compromise on the U S financial restrictions. If the next talks do not happen or fail to make progress, North Korea may again seek to escalate tensions, he said.

''If the talks fail, it's quite likely that North Korea will hold another nuclear test,'' he said.

REUTERS

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