Nuclear talks enter uncharted territory
(Reuters)
Updated: 2005-07-30 15:23

A South Korean official said China had presented a draft joint statement for discussion. Previous rounds have failed to secure a common position.

U.S. chief negotiator Christopher Hill said on Saturday: "Seriously, we will have a lot of discussion about text to see if we can come to some agreement among the six."

"But I want to let you know it's going to take a while, this is not going to be finished today or even tomorrow because even though the text will be rather brief (it will be) rather important too."

The talks have come a long way from the early days of the administration of George W. Bush, when the president labelled North Korea part of an "axis of evil" alongside Iran and pre-war Iraq, or even from early this year when his secretary of state called Pyongyang an "outpost of tyranny".

This time the discussions involving the two Koreas, the United States, Russia, Japan and China have remained open-ended. If lacking in major concessions so far, they have featured a more thorough airing of viewpoints that the parties hope could point to possible consensus.

The nuclear standoff erupted in October 2002 when U.S. officials accused Pyongyang of pursuing a clandestine weapons programme, prompting it to expel U.N. nuclear inspectors.

North Korea announced on February 10 this year that it had nuclear weapons and demanded that the United States provide aid, security guarantees and diplomatic recognition in return for scrapping them. Washington insists the nuclear programmes be abandoned first.

In Washington, U.S. officials said negotiators at the Beijing talks had presented North Korea with data America says is evidence of a covert programme to produce highly enriched uranium (HEU). Pyongyang admits only to reprocessing plutonium.

They said the evidence was obtained from disgraced Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan whose secret network sold nuclear technology to North Korea.