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BEIJING : The six-nation agreement on shutting down North Korea's nuclear arms programme is "on schedule" after negotiators agreed on some key implementation details in talks on Sunday, the US envoy said.
Pyongyang and Washington also agreed on how to finally lay to rest a lingering row over North Korea funds frozen in a Macau bank by US sanctions, a top Chinese diplomat was quoted as saying by state-run media.
US negotiator Christopher Hill said participants in talks in Beijing reached consensus on key points of the February 13 disarmament accord, including what constituted a "shutdown" of Pyongyang's main nuclear reactor and the role that the watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency will play in verifying compliance.
"In that sense, it was a very good working group because there was a lot of discussion among various parties and an agreement on common definitions," Hill told reporters.
"I think we are on schedule for the shutdown of the facilities marked by the IAEA. I am pleased we are moving on that," he said, without offering further details.
Hill spoke after a second day of preparatory discussions ahead of full six-party talks on implementing the nuclear accord, which start Monday.
Hill also expressed confidence that a nagging dispute over roughly US$25 million in frozen North Korean funds would soon be resolved.
"On the basis of our consultations, I think we will be able to make an announcement or a statement on that ... very, very soon," he said.
The funds were frozen by US sanctions imposed on Macau's Banco Delta Asia in 2005 due to suspicion that it was laundering money for North Korea's secretive regime.
The dispute has become the latest stumbling block in years of negotiations aimed at getting the Stalinist North, which tested its first atom bomb in October last year, to give up its nuclear programmes.
Lifting the sanctions was a key part of last month's deal, under which the North would get badly needed energy aid and other assistance in exchange for eventually shutting down its nuclear programmes.
The US Treasury Department announced on Wednesday that it had cleared the way for the release of funds in the bank, but it was unclear whether that applied to all of the money.
North Korea's top nuclear negotiator Kim Kye-Gwan said on Saturday that Pyongyang would not carry out denuclearisation until all the funds were freed.
But Chinese State Councillor Tang Jiaxuan was quoted by Xinhua news agency on Sunday as saying the US and North Korea had "worked out a solution to the frozen funds," without providing details.
South Korea's Yonhap news agency had said the funds were likely to be released before next week's six-party talks between China, the United States, North and South Korea, Japan and Russia.
The US Treasury's point man on the dispute, Daniel Glaser, arrived in Beijing on Sunday but declined substantive comment to reporters.
South Korean envoy Chun Yung-woo said Saturday that North Korea had indicated to the other five parties that it had already begun preparations to shut down its Yongbyon plant, one of the cornerstones of the disarmament deal.
Negotiators agreed on Sunday "to proceed with the shutdown and sealing" of the Yongbyon complex within 60 days, Japan's Kyodo news agency reported on Sunday, quoting an unnamed Japanese official.
Hill said he would meet with Kim on Monday for talks expected to push the process further forward.
"It is pretty clear (the North Koreans) are prepared to move ahead," Hill said. - AFP/de
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