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SINGAPORE: Foreign ministers from six nations will meet in Singapore on Wednesday for further talks on the denuclearisation of North Korea, a Chinese official said Tuesday.
The official confirmed that the "informal meeting" will take place between North and South Korea, the United States, Russia and Japan as well as China.
Officials had not previously confirmed exactly when the meeting would occur.
After arriving in Singapore late on Monday, US envoy Christopher Hill refrained from confirming when the meeting would take place.
But he said ministers from the six nations will discuss ways to move ahead on the denuclearisation of North Korea, on the sidelines of this week's ASEAN Regional Forum.
The meeting was being arranged by China, Hill said.
"It is just an informal meeting, I'm sure they will be discussing trying to finish up the verification protocol and probably they will have a discussion on what phase three will look like," Hill said.
Six-party negotiations are currently focused on setting up a mechanism to verify a nuclear declaration turned over by North Korea last month.
North Korea paved the way for the third and final phase of disarmament when it issued the long-delayed partial accounting of its nuclear programmes and promised to finish disabling its plutonium reactor by October.
Though it had originally been due at the end of last year, the declaration was part of a landmark disarmament accord agreed to in the six-party forum in February 2007.
"We have always maintained that verification is essential," Hill said. "So, we hope to make some progress on that very soon."
- AFP/yb
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