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Foreign Minister Song Min-soon on Wednesday said six-party talks to resume on Feb 8 aim to ¡°eliminate all of North Korea¡¯s nuclear programs¡± rather than simply return to the status quo ante of 2002 or before the second North Korean nuclear crisis. After freezing activities at a nuclear reactor under the Geneva Agreement between the U.S. and the North in 1994, North Korea started to operate the reactors again in 2003 to produce plutonium, a key material to make nuclear weapons. Pundits have said getting North Korea to freeze nuclear activities again hardly amounts to progress.
Song told reporters what the parties hope to achieve this time ¡°will become an integral part¡± of a Sept. 2005 statement of principles where Pyongyang agreed to scrap its nuclear program completely. ¡°Early measures we aim for in the upcoming round should be agreed based on full implementation of the ¡¦ statement,¡± Song said. "We still have a long way to go before adopting a joint statement, though we have gone through a lot of discussions and fine-tuning among the nations involved. Although we hope the countries will adopt a joint written agreement, we will only be able to know if they can reach agreement on everything when we start the negotiation process."
Meanwhile, John Negroponte, just nominated as deputy U.S. secretary of state, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during his confirmation hearing that the purpose of the six-party talks is to put a freeze on the North¡¯s nuclear reactors and nuclear enrichment reprocessing facilities and to launch an international investigation. He said he ¡°certainly wouldn't rule out" the possibility of a visit to North Korea by the U.S. chief negotiator Christopher Hill if progress is made.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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