US says much work to be done at North Korea talks

BEIJING, July 18 (Reuters) US envoy Christopher Hill said there was much work to be done at today's new round of six-party talks on reining in North Korea's nuclear programme but held out the hope of agreeing to a disarmament schedule.

Chief negotiators will spend two days seeking to agree on a timetable for the next phase of North Korea's retreat from its nuclear weapons programme now that it has shut its Yongbyon nuclear reactor.

Hill told reporters late yesterday that in a meeting with North Korea's chief negotiator, Kim Kye-gwan, he had pressed the idea of a timetable that would conclude the second phase of disarmament by the end of the year.

That would involve North Korea's declaration of all its nuclear activities and permanently disabling Yongbyon.

''We all know that we've got a long road ahead of us with many steps,'' he told reporters today. ''Maybe we could try to agree on getting these next phase things done in calendar year 07.'' There had been no agreement on plans for that phase yet, he said, but North Korea and the United States seemed to be in the same ''general vicinity''.

Part of the phase would include pushing forward working groups which would deal with technical aspects of any agreement and improving political relations.

The third phase would require North Korea handing over fissile nuclear materials and other atomic arms infrastructure.

Hill said yesterday he could not speak for the North Koreans but that he felt they seemed receptive. ''I think we're on the same ballpark,'' he said.

Yongbyon produces material that can be turned into weapons-grade plutonium and in February North Korea agreed to close it in return for 50,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil, which began moving there from South Korea last week.

North and South Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia will now begin to explore how to scrap Yongbyon and terminate North Korea's nuclear weapons potential in return for another 950,000 tonnes of oil or equivalent aid.

The U.S. State Department has said that International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) technicians who arrived in North Korea over the weekend had verified the shutdown of the Yongbyon reactor and expected to verify the status of four other nuclear facilities, including a spent fuel reprocessing plant, by Wednesday.

But verifying a full deal would entail sweeping inspections of a regime that has long warded off international intrusion.

After throwing out IAEA inspectors in late 2002, North Korea quit the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which the IAEA enforces.

In 2005, Pyongyang declared it had nuclear arms, and last October it alarmed the world with its first test detonation.

Reuters JK VP0702