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Six-Party talks on North Korea¡¯s nuclear program ambled into their eighth day on Tuesday as negotiations remained stuck on the scope of the Stalinist country¡¯s nuclear dismantlement.
A high-ranking government official said Tuesday talks would be ¡°painful to the very end¡± and could reach a turning point soon. The official said the biggest point of contention between the U.S. and North Korea remained the scope of dismantlement -- an apparent reference to Pyongyang¡¯s attempts to keep its peaceful nuclear facilities.
Seoul appears to have performed a U-turn on the question. A South Korean official said, "Our position is that we must guarantee them¡± the use of peaceful nuclear facilities. In its keynote address, Seoul had called on all nuclear weapons and nuclear programs to be verifiably dismantled, and officials had been saying that Pyongyang must not be allowed to operate peaceful nuclear facilities either.
The chief negotiators of the six nations met together on Tuesday, while host nation China met separately with the U.S. and North Korea to attempt to broker an agreement. But chief negotiators were frank about the difficulties. "All our wisdom is being exhausted,¡± South Korean chief delegate Song Min-soon said, while U.S. point man Christopher Hill said, "I need to be very clear that there are a lot of differences between the North Korean side on one hand and everyone else on the other hand." Japanese chief delegate Kenichiro Sasae said the negotiations were slowly approaching their most important moment.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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