North Korea has agreed to report and disable all its nuclear facilities by late this year, the chief U.S. envoy in talks with the reclusive nation said Sunday. Christopher Hill summed up two days of working talks on the normalization of relations between the U.S. and North Korea saying, ¡°We had very good and very substantive talks.¡±
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Left: U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill holds a press conference at the entrance of the U.S. Mission in Geneva on Sunday after a two-day U.S.-North Korea bilateral working group meeting aimed at reaching an agreement on how to proceed with Pyongyang's denuclearisation pledge. Right: North Korea's chief negotiator Kim Kye-gwan leaves his hotel in Geneva prior to the meeting on Sunday. /AFP (Hill) and AP (Kim)
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He said North Korea will report its uranium enrichment program, on which the two sides had ¡°good discussions¡± that will continue, agency reports said. Hill said the two sides dealt with a broad range of issues. His North Korean counterpart Kim Kye-gwan said, ¡°We made it clear, we showed clear willingness to declare and dismantle all nuclear facilities.¡± He added, ¡°In return for this, we will receive political and economic compensation.¡±
The disablement of North Korea¡¯s nuclear facilities under a Feb. 13 agreement in six-nation nuclear talks is the biggest short-term goal in tackling the North Korean nuclear problem. The reward for reporting and disabling all facilities will be the removal of North Korea from the U.S.¡¯ list of state sponsors of terrorism and the lifting of the U.S. Trade with Hostile Nations Act on the North. That Pyongyang has agreed to disable the facilities by late this year suggests that the two sides made progress on the two sticky issues. A South Korean government official predicted ¡°good news¡± from the working talks.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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