US, Japan hope for progress in North Korea talks

Tokyo, Jan 20: US and Japanese envoys to six-country talks on ending North Korea's nuclear arms programmes expressed hope today that the next round could make progress, after Washington and Pyongyang had meetings in Berlin.

''I would say those meetings in Berlin were indeed useful.

They were very concrete. We discussed some of the specific issues we would need to negotiate in the six-party talks,'' US envoy Christopher Hill told reporters after meeting his Japanese counterpart, Kenichiro Sasae.

''We hope that this time we can make some real progress,'' Hill added. ''We are committed to trying to make the six-party process work and achieve the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.'' No date has been set for the next round of talks among the two Koreas, China, the United States, Japan and Russia, which began in 2003 and are aimed at persuading impoverished Pyongyang to scrap its nuclear arms development.

The last round of six-party talks, in December -- just two months after a defiant nuclear test by the North triggered UN sanctions -- ended inconclusively.

Hill told reporters in Tokyo that he and the North's top six-party envoy, Kim Kye-gwan, had agreed in their Berlin meetings to resume the six-way discussions soon. ''We agreed on the need to get going with the next round,'' he said.

China, which hosts the talks, was expected to decide on a date for the resumption after consulting other participants in the multilateral forum, Hill said.

Hill and South Korean envoy Chun Yung-woo said in Seoul yesterday that they hoped the next round of talks would start before the February 18 Lunar New Year.

'A Certain Agreement'

North Korea said through its official KCNA news agency yesterday only that it had reached a ''certain agreement'' with the United States at the talks in Berlin.

Today, the reclusive communist state's official media blasted Washington for a transfer of fighter bombers and military personnel to South Korea for military exercises.

''It is clear to everybody that this is a revelation of the US sinister intention to torpedo the six-party talks and do harm to the DPRK (North Korea) through preemptive attacks on it,'' KCNA quoted the daily Rodong Sinmun as saying in a commentary.

Hill stressed the need to act quickly on a September 2005 six-party deal under which Pyongyang would abandon the nuclear option in exchange for economic aid and security guarantees.

''We can't do it all at once, but we hope to achieve some of it,'' he said. ''This is a tough enough and difficult enough business.'' Hill said there was a tentative date for separate bilateral talks on a US crackdown on North Korea's external financing.

Washington has squeezed firms it suspects of aiding Pyongyang in illicit activities such as counterfeiting. It has designated a bank in Macau as a money-laundering concern, effectively cutting the North's main banking conduit to the outside world.

Pyongyang has said the financial sanctions must be lifted before any progress can be made in the nuclear negotiations.

South Korea's foreign minister said yesterday that he expected the talks between US and North Korean financial officials to take place in the United States next week.

Hill is expected to travel to Beijing tomorrow.

Reuters