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TOKYO - The top US negotiator predicted Saturday that North Korea will shut its nuclear reactor within three weeks and that foreign ministers will meet in July to discuss the next steps in disarming Pyongyang.
Christopher Hill was upbeat after he paid a surprise 24-hour visit to the communist state to push forward a long-delayed deal for Pyongyang to freeze the Yongbyon reactor, the source of its weapon-making plutonium.
North Korea hailed his visit as "productive" and the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it was set to go back to the country on Tuesday more than four years after being kicked out.
"We expect Yongbyon to be shut down after there is an agreement between the DPRK and the IAEA on how to monitor the situation," Hill said, using the North's official acronym.
"We do expect this to take place soon, within probably three weeks," he said in Tokyo after briefing Japan on his trip at the end of a regional tour.
Hill hoped the next round of disarmament talks -- involving China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the United States -- would be held in early July with a first six-way talks of foreign ministers by the end of the month.
"What we are trying to get to is the ministerial (level), which we would like to have in the late July timeframe," Hill said.
North Korea, which tested an atom bomb last year, in February agreed to a breakthrough six-nation deal to shut down its reactor in return for aid and diplomatic benefits.
But it had failed to comply due to a row over assets that were frozen two years ago and are finally being returned through a complex bank transfer.
In North Korea's first substantive comments on Hill's visit, a foreign ministry spokesman agreed on holding the six-nation talks early next month.
"The discussions were comprehensive and productive," the spokesman was quoted as saying by the North's official Korean Central News Agency.
Hill said he wanted the upcoming talks to discuss the next step in the six-way deal -- permanently disabling the Yongbyon reactor and listing other nuclear programmes.
"I know some people think we are in a hurry. Americans are always in a hurry. We always want to get through things and get moving," Hill said.
Hill was the first US negotiator to visit Pyongyang since his predecessor James Kelly in October 2002. Kelly confronted the North over its nuclear ambitions, heightening a crisis in which Kim Jong-Il's regime kicked out the IAEA inspectors.
But the approach of US President George W. Bush, who once called North Korea part of an "axis of evil," has changed sharply since then. Some analysts said Washington was looking for a diplomatic success amid turmoil in Iraq and tension with Iran.
"The United States cannot engage fully both in the Middle East and Northeast Asia," said Takehiko Yamamoto, professor of international security at Tokyo's Waseda University. "North Korea probably seems a relatively less difficult issue compared with Iraq and Iran."
"In the case of North Korea, the United States knows that the surrounding nations -- China, Russia, and Japan -- want to see a soft-landing scenario" for the impoverished communist state.
But Japan has been cautious about Hill's visit, with Foreign Minister Taro Aso suggesting it was hasty.
Japan has tense relations with North Korea and refused to fund the February deal due to an emotionally charged row over Pyongyang's past abductions of Japanese civilians.
Hill tried to play down Japan's unease, saying he brought up the kidnapping row with North Korean officials.
On Japan's reaction to his trip to Pyongyang, Hill said: "I'm not worried about it leading to any reduction of our relationship." - AFP/ir
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