US wants real progress in N.Korean nuclear talks

BEIJING, Dec 16 (Reuters) North Korea is urging an end to what it calls US hostility while Washington believes the time is ripe for real progress when six-party talks seeking to end North Korea's nuclear weapons programmes restart on Monday.

Negotiations between the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, Russia and China have been on hold for more than a year, and analysts and officials hold out little hope of a major breakthrough in Beijing.

The reclusive North had boycotted negotiations in response to a US crackdown on what Washington says is pyongyang's counterfeiting of US dollars and money-laundering which led to North Korean accounts at Macau's Banco Delta Asia being frozen.

North Korea test-fired missiles in July and carried out a nuclear test in October, which triggered international condemnation and UN sanctions supported even by its closest ally and biggest oil and aid supplier, China.

Pyongyang's envoy Kim Kye-gwan demanded today an end to the financial sanctions as a prerequisite to progress on measures in a September 2005 six-party accord.

Last September North Korea agreed in principle to scrap its nuclear weapons in exchange for aid and security guarantees.

US envoy Christopher Hill, due to arrive in China tomrrow, said the US financial curbs issue would be dealt with in discussions carried out in parallel with the six-party talks.

But Hill said the negotiations should focus on dismantling North Korea's nuclear programmes.

''It's very important that we not focus on those financial issues but rather on the central matter of denuclearising the Korean peninsula,'' he told reporters in Tokyo today.

''It'll be a very long and a very difficult week but we look forward to it because we believe that now is the time to make real progress on the ground, not just on paper,'' Hill said.

The crisis has simmered since October 2002, when US officials said North Korea was pursuing a clandestine nuclear weapons programme.

Pyongyang responded by expelling international weapons inspectors, withdrawing from the Non-Proliferation Treaty and restarting the reactor at its Yongbyun nuclear facility.

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