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US, North Korean envoys to meet before Korean nuclear talks in Beijing
The U.S. envoy to six-nation talks on North Korea's nuclear program said Monday he would hold a rare one-on-one meeting with his North Korean counterpart before the talks. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said he would meet North Korea's envoy on Monday afternoon before the full round of talks begins Tuesday after a gap of more than a year. "We are just trying to get acquainted, review how we see things coming up and compare notes," Hill told reporters. Referring to Tuesday's talks, he said, "We are looking forward to working hard and trying to make some progress." He did not say what progress Washington hopes to make. The talks also include host China, South Korea Russia and Japan. Hill said Sunday that he didn't expect the meetings this week to be the last set of negotiations over demands that the North give up its nuclear program. He said the process is "going to take a lot of work." South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Song Min-soon and his North Korean counterpart, Kim Kye Gwan, met Sunday and "agreed to come up with a framework to realize denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," a South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman said. The two Koreas agreed to hold bilateral meetings throughout the talks, the South Korean news agency Yonhap reported. Earlier this month, Seoul offered a new incentive for the North to negotiate - 2 million kilowatts of electricity by 2008 if it agrees to dismantle its nuclear weapons. The leader of Japan's delegation, Kenichiro Sasae, called the nuclear issue "central" to talks, but said he would make "utmost efforts" to address North Korea's past abductions of Japanese citizens, according to Japan's Kyodo News agency. The last round of talks ended in June 2004 without major progress toward a settlement of the dispute. It erupted in late 2002 when the United States said North Korea had admitted running a nuclear program in violation of an earlier agreement. In February, the North claimed it had nuclear weapons. It hasn't conducted any known nuclear test explosions, but experts believe it has enough weapons-grade plutonium for about a half-dozen bombs. North Korea says it would drop its nuclear ambitions in exchange for diplomatic relations with the United States and a formal U.S. nonaggression commitment. It also wants to be removed from Washington's list of terrorism-sponsoring countries, and for economic sanctions against it to be dropped. Washington has refused to offer concessions until the North is certified free of nuclear weapons, but the North insists on getting something first before abandoning its atomic program. "If the U.S. drops its ambition for a 'regime change' and opts for peaceful coexistence with (North Korea), the talks can make successful progress and settle the issue of denuclearizing the peninsula," the North's Rodong Sinmun newspaper wrote in an editorial, according to the Korean Central News Agency. The North also said it remains "unshakable" in its stance seeking a "peaceful negotiated settlement of the nuclear issue" and a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula, according to the newspaper. Meanwhile, North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun held talks Sunday with his Thai counterpart, Kantathi Suphamongkhon, in Bangkok. "There is the sense of desire to put the nuclear situation to rest if a package can be agreed upon," Kantathi told reporters after the meeting. "There's a sense that there's an eagerness to resume the talks. ... There's a clear desire now to move forward." On Friday, North Korea laid out its ultimate goal for the talks: a peace treaty with Washington on the divided Korean Peninsula that would formally end the war they fought a half-century ago. The 1950-53 Korean War ended in a cease-fire, leaving the two sides still technically at war, with hundreds of thousands of troops facing off across the border.
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