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North Korea’s chief negotiator Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan announced his country’s willingness to achieve denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. "Finally ending the threat of nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula and achieving denuclearization requires firm political will and a strategic decision on the part of those directly involved. We affirm that we are prepared to do this," he said.

Representatives from the six countries in talks on North Korea’s nuclear program listen to Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhao Xing’s opening address in Beijing on Tuesday. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill is second right in the front, while North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan is second right behind him./Yonhap

U.S. chief negotiator Christopher Hill said if Pyongyang makes a strategic decision to abandon its nuclear program, the other participants were prepared to work to resolve North Korea's security concerns and discuss Pyongyang's requests for energy.

The U.S. and North Korea met face-to-face the day before to affirm the principle of denuclearization, but there was reportedly still a big gap over concrete measures.

However, South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young told a Uri Party policy committee meeting he had a "heavy feeling that things will not be easy, with serious obstacles ahead" for the talks, in an apparent reference to North Korean demands that the talks should discuss the nuclear disarmament of both sides.

But he said if the talks produce a joint agreement on denuclearization and North Korea agrees to scrap its nuclear program, the two Koreas will immediately begin full-scale negotiations on Seoul's supply of free electricity to the North.

Meanwhile, Chung said the nation needed more funds to develop the inter-Korean relationship, proposing 1 percent of the general budget be set aside for cooperation from next year. He urged ruling party lawmakers to help usher in an “age of W1 trillion(about US$ 1 billion) in inter-Korean cooperation funds."

(englishnews@chosun.com )