Participants in the Six-Party Talks gathered yesterday to discuss the technical details of the disablement and full declaration of Pyongyang's nuclear facilities.
Foreign Vice-Minister Wu Dawei, the host of the two-day working group meeting, said in his opening remarks that the meeting had been arranged to prepare for the next full session of the Six-Party Talks and would focus on implementing the process of denuclearization.
The Shenyang meeting, one of the five working group meetings laid out in the landmark February agreement, came after Pyongyang shut down and sealed its Yongbyon nuclear facility last month and accepted the verification of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Noting the participation in the meeting by experts from the six countries, Wu said he welcomed their contribution and hoped the meeting would yield positive results.
US chief negotiator Christopher Hill said earlier that the talks would not directly address any deadlines for further implementation of previous agreements, but would try to identify how long it will take to accomplish the technical tasks involved.
Among the possible sticking points in the talks was the question of whether the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) will include a program to enrich uranium in the declaration of its nuclear programs.
Washington suspects Pyongyang of running a secretive highly enriched uranium program in addition to the projects it has already admitted to.
Negotiators began to hold bilateral consultations from yesterday morning in a bid to hammer out as many common understandings as possible to pave the way for the next full session.
Hill said working group meetings regarding US-DPRK relations and Japan-DPRK relations would be held later this month.
Hill made the remarks after talks with his Japanese counterpart Kenichiro Sasae on the sidelines of the meeting yesterday morning.
Sasae is in Shenyang specifically for talks with the United States and is not involved in the working group meeting.
Three of the chief delegates to the Six-Party Talks attended the working group meeting: Wu, Hill and Chun Yung-wo from the Republic of Korea.
The chief delegates to the Six-Party Talks agreed in their last meeting last month to hold the five working group meetings by the end of this month.
One on economic and energy cooperation took place at the village of Panmunjom on the border between the northern and southern parts of the Korean peninsula earlier this month.
The Russia-chaired working group on establishing a peace mechanism in Northeast Asia is also scheduled to be held later this month.
Source: China Daily
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