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SINGAPORE : US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pressed her North Korean counterpart to move rapidly on new nuclear disarmament steps on Wednesday but hailed the "good spirit" at unprecedented six-party talks.
Rice said she shook hands twice with North Korean Foreign Minister Pak Ui-Chun who she met for the first time as she and her negotiating partners gave him a "very tough message" for Pyongyang to meet its obligations.
The pair met in Singapore with their counterparts from China, South Korea, Russia and Japan.
The United States would like North Korea to agree to a US draft protocol setting out the arrangements for verifying the steps it has taken toward disarmament since a February 2007 landmark agreement.
It hopes the protocol will be decided on in early August to allow for the start of verification in which experts would inspect North Korean plants, take soil samples, review documents and interview technical personnel.
"We didn't get into specific timetables," Rice told reporters afterward.
"Look, the spirit was good because the people believe we've made progress but there is also a sense of urgency about moving on and a sense that we can't afford another hiatus of several months," she said.
Begun in 2003 before lapsing for three years, the six-country disarmament negotiations resumed after North Korea staged its first nuclear test in 2006 and finally produced a landmark denuclearisation agreement in February 2007.
The negotiations then hit a deadlock at the end of last year when North Korea failed to meet a deadline to fully disable its weapons-grade plutonium plants and deliver a full accounting of its nuclear programmes.
The deadlock was broken last month when North Korea handed over a partial accounting of its nuclear programmes that must now be completely dismantled and the whole process verified.
US President George W. Bush has begun the procedure to remove North Korea from a blacklist of countries that allegedly sponsor terrorism as well as ease economic sanctions on North Korea, though most remain in place.
But North Korea charged anew on Wednesday that Washington had not lived up to its side of the bargain.
Pak "emphasised the need for full implementation by the six parties the respected obligations of each side" under previous agreements, according to Ri Tong-Il, the North Korean foreign ministry spokesman.
The principle was based on "action for action," Pak added.
Ri said that: "I think what is most important is to lift the sanctions fully and in a full-phase way to drop the hostile policy against the (North)."
Rice told reporters later that Pak caused "no surprises" when he reiterated his government's position.
Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi opened the talks, saying they came at a "critical point" in negotiations to rid North Korea of nuclear weapons and showed all parties had the political will to move forward.
Yang said later that the talks were held in "frank and positive spirit" and the parties "made useful preparations to hold a formal six-party foreign ministers' meeting at an early date."
Pak sat between his Chinese and Japanese counterparts, with Rice seated between Russia and China. The meeting lasted 80 minutes, 20 minutes longer than anticipated, Rice said.
Rice had played down expectations for the meeting, held on the sidelines of Thursday's 27-nation ASEAN Regional Forum security talks, saying it would not be "historic, monumental or even consequential."
Ri, the North Korean official, said the six-party talks had never before taken place at this level. Rice's predecessor Colin Powell met with Pak's predecessor in Indonesia in 2004.
A senior US official told reporters that Rice went up to Pak after the meeting to underline both the need to complete the verification protocol and to talk to the Japanese over past abductions of Japanese citizens.
Japan has been adamant about resolving a row over North Korea's kidnappings in the 1970s and 1980s of Japanese civilians who were used to train its spies.
North Korea returned five abductees in 2002 and said the case was closed. But in a reversal under US pressure, North Korea agreed this month to reinvestigate the fate of the kidnap victims. - AFP/de
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