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U.S. Says U.S.-DPRK Rome Talks Make Progress
The United States said on Tuesday that the Rome talks between Washington and Pyongyang were serious and constructive and made progress.
The six-day long talks, which ended on Tuesday, were "serious and constructive," State Department spokesman Philip Reeker told reporters. "We made progress."
"They launched new negotiations on Agreed Framework implementation," he added, referring to the 1994 deal, under which the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) agreed to freeze its nuclear program in return for the West to help with fuel oil and Western-designed light-water nuclear reactors.
Reeker said the two sides agreed to meet on May 31 to prepare for a new round of talks on DPRK's missile programs. But he did not say where to hold the talks.
The spokesman also said a U.S. team made a second visit to the Kumchang-ri site last week under an agreement negotiated with the DPRK in 1999.
Reeker said the team found that a complex of underground tunnels at the site, once Washington had suspected to be part of a nuclear program but found nothing suspicious there in the U.S. first visit last May, stopped work.
"The team reports that the DPRK cooperated fully in the visit, providing unhampered access which allowed for the rapid completion of the team's work," he said. "The team found conditions unchanged since the first visit a year ago.... It remains an unfinished site, the underground portion of which is an extensive empty tunnel complex."
He said DPRK officials told the team that they would be willing to consider other uses for the site, which was said to have been intended as an unspecified "national security-related facility", including possible commercial uses.
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