The spectre of failure looms over six-party talks

Nothing concrete has emerged from the eleventh day of talks about North Korean nuclear disarmament. Pyongyang has also rejected the fourth draft of the joint declaration.

Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) – "We want to denuclearise the Korean Peninsula but we seek peaceful use of atomic energy," North Korea's chief negotiator, Vice-Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan, told six-party talks underway in Beijing.

North Korea's request and Pyongyang's refusal to approve even the fourth draft of the joint declaration has raised the spectre of failure of the fourth round – in two years – of multilateral talks about North Korean nuclear disarmament, now in their eleventh day. Christopher Hill, US assistant secretary of state, said: "We cannot have a situation where the Democratic People's Republic of Korea pretends to abandon its nuclear programs and we pretend to believe them." If this round of talks between China, the two Koreas, Japan, Russia and the USA ends in a stalemate, Washington could take the matter to the UN Security Council, an option opposed by Beijing and Pyongyang, which considers UN sanctions as tantamount to a declaration of war. According to intelligence experts, Pyongyang may have enough plutonium for nine atomic weapons.

• north
• korea
• nuclear
• six
• party
• talks
• atomic
• denuclearisation
• dismantling
• energy
• sanctions