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WASHINGTON : A top US envoy has held talks with North Korean officials in New York about steps to verify their nuclear disarmament and deliveries of energy aid under the disarmament deal, a US official said Friday.
The envoy, Christopher Hill, met for dinner Thursday with the delegates, including Ri Gun, director general for North American Affairs at the North Korean foreign ministry, State Department deputy spokesman Robert Wood told reporters.
Ri Gun is heading a North Korean delegation to events in New York organized by the National Committee on American Foreign Policy, a non-governmental organization (NGO), according to the State Department.
Hill, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, and the North Koreans "discussed the verification protocol, energy assistance, and disablement of the North's nuclear facilities," Wood said.
The United States and its partners North Korea, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia must formally agree to a disarmament verification protocol now that the United States and North Korea have resolved a months-long dispute.
A date has still to be set for the six parties to meet and agree to the verification protocol, Wood said.
On October 11 the United States struck North Korea from a list of countries which allegedly support terrorism after Pyongyang agreed to steps to verify its nuclear disarmament and pledged to resume disabling its atomic plants.
The move appeared to save the six-party disarmament negotiations from potential collapse.
Wood gave no details on the subject of energy assistance, but Hill told reporters on October 28 that the United States was in touch with other countries to replace Japan in supplying fuel oil to Pyongyang.
US officials said on the condition of anonymity that both Australia and the European Union had been contacted.
Japan has refused to give fuel to North Korea as promised under the disarmament deal until Pyongyang does more to account for Japanese nationals kidnapped by the communist state in the 1970s and 1980s to train its spies.
Under a landmark 2007 deal, North Korea was to receive one million tons of fuel oil or equivalent energy aid from the other five countries in return for disabling and dismantling its plutonium-producing plants.
Wood said that Sung Kim, who heads the State Department's Korea office, had three sets of discussions, including a working lunch, with Ri Gun.
"The talks were substantive, serious, and they focused on, of course, how to move the six-party process forward," he said.
- AFP /ls
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