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BEIJING: Six-nation talks aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear weapons programme will resume here on Wednesday next week, China's foreign ministry announced.
"The heads of delegations of the six-party talks will resume discussions in Beijing on 18 and 19 July," ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporters on Thursday.
The resumption of the talks will coincide with the expected shutdown next week by North Korea of its Yongbyon nuclear reactor, the facility at the core of its atomic weapons programme.
The head of the United Nations' atomic watchdog agency said in Seoul on Thursday he expected North Korea to begin closing Yongbyon early next week.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors are likely to arrive on Saturday to monitor the shutdown of the reactor, which produces the raw material for bomb-making plutonium, and four related plants.
"I expect that operation to move smoothly. We already have an agreement on how to go about it," IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei told a press conference.
North Korea has said it will consider shutting the Soviet-era Yongbyon facility as soon as it receives a first shipment of oil agreed to as part of a six-nation disarmament accord brokered in February.
South Korea announced on Thursday that a first delivery of 6,200 tonnes of oil had set sail for the North.
The six-nation talks – involving China, the two Koreas, the United States, Japan and Russia – began in 2003 with the aim of brokering a deal that would see the North abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions.
Under the February accord, the North agreed to close Yongbyon and allow IAEA inspectors back into the country in exchange for 50,000 tonnes of fuel oil.
North Korea agreed to also eventually completely disband its nuclear weapons programme in exchange for a total of one million tonnes of fuel oil or equivalent energy aid, plus a wide range of diplomatic concessions.
- AFP/so
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