NKorea nuclear ambitions on table in Beijing

Beijing, Feb 8: Envoys seeking to dismantle North Korea's nuclear weapons programme are set to launch fresh efforts to win concessions from the isolated and wary communist state in six-party talks in Beijing today.

Negotiatiors will gather in a secluded compound in western Beijing and, aided by rows of translators, focus on fleshing out a 2005 statement offering North Korea economic and security concessions in return for abandoning nuclear weapons ambitions.

Even before talks began, however, participants played down hopes of an immediate settlement of the long-burning standoff, which escalated after Pyongyang staged its first atomic test blast in October, which prompted United Nations sanctions.

''I want to emphasise that the real success is when we complete the September 05 agreement,'' chief US negotiator Christopher Hill told reporters in Beijing yesterday.

''Not just when we start the 05 agreement, but when we finish it, so we're not going to finish that this week. We'll just maybe take a good first step.'' Hill said progress at the latest round of the intermittent talks depended on all six parties -- host China, the two Koreas, the United States, Japan and Russia.

China has not set any date for ending the latest talks, but its chief negotiator, Wu Dawei, has said they may last three or four days.

South Korea's envoy Chun Yung-woo said that after much negotiation it was time for results, and he urged compromise from all.

''North Korea must be prepared to show, in actions, its commitment for denuclearisation and must not make unreasonable demands, and the other five countries must not be ungenerous or hesitant in taking rational corresponding measures,'' Chun told reporters in Beijing yesterday.

Plutonium Freeze

These talks are likely to focus on persuading North Korea to first freeze its Yongbyon nuclear plant, a source of plutonium for nuclear weapons.

Hopes that such a deal would be sealed at the previous round in December faded after North Korea focused on its objections to a US financial crackdown.

David Albright, a Washington-based nuclear expert who visited Pyongyang last week, told Reuters this week that chief North Korean negotiator Kim Kye-gwan was ''optimistic'' a deal, including a freeze on plutonium production at Yongbyon, was within reach this time.

In exchange for the freeze and the return of UN inspectors, the energy-famished North wants electricity or volumes of heavy fuel oil from its neighbours, as well as Pyongyang's removal from Washington's list of terror-sponsoring states, said Albright, head of the Institute for Science and International Security.

But some observers believe agreement could still be stymied by North Korean anger at the US financial squeeze, which Washington invoked in late 2005 after finding Pyongyang was involved in printing counterfeit US currency and other illicit business.

North Korea has threatened not to consider scrapping its nuclear weapons programme until Washington ends the crackdown.

The latest bilateral talks in January between the US Treasury Department and North Korean officials seeking to resolve the dispute ended with no sign of a breakthrough.

Reuters

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