US to discuss NKorea nuclear talks with Japan, SKorea

The United States, Japan and South Korea were to discuss Monday how to advance nuclear disarmament talks with North Korea if Pyongyang meets its obligations, a senior US official said. "They will talk about the six-party talks, where we stand, how, if the North Koreans comply with their obligations, to move the process forward," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters. US nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill was due to meet in Washington later Monday with his South Korean counterpart Kim Sook and Japanese counterpart Akitaka Saiki.Pyongyang, which staged its first nuclear test in October 2006, is disabling its reactor and other plants at Yongbyon under a six-country deal reached last year with the United States, China, Japan, Russia and South Korea.But disputes over the declaration due last December 31 have blocked the start of the final phase of the process-the permanent dismantling of the plants and the handover of all material.In return for total denuclearization, the North would receive energy aid, removal from a US blacklist of countries that sponsor terrorism, a lifting of US sanctions, the establishment of diplomatic ties with Washington and a formal peace treaty.Hopes have grown that North Korea may soon issue the long-awaited declaration.US envoy Sung Kim returned from Pyongyang last week with some 18,000 pages of documents on the history of a plutonium bomb-making program dating back to 1986, which Kim said would help verify the contents of any declaration.McCormack gave no sign as to when the United States would remove North Korea from the State Department list of countries that sponsor terrorism."If the facts merit their being removed from the terrorism list, we will keep you updated as to if and when we take that action," he said.
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As in the days of Noah....