Rice says verification key for NKorea nuclear disarmament
Posted: 27 November 2008 1127 hrs

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WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she hopes North Korea will sign an agreement to verify its nuclear disarmament during the next six-party talks set to take place in China next month.

Rice previously indicated that the meeting would be held on December 8 in Beijing.

The talks will bring together Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Christopher Hill with his counterparts from the five other parties in the disarmament negotiations -- North and South Korea, China, Russia and Japan.

"The focus on that meeting will be for the six parties to sign on to the verification protocol that has been initialed by the United States and North Korea on behalf of the parties," Rice told a press conference Wednesday.

"The disabling has resumed, and it needs to continue to conclusion. But this verification protocol is now the key," Rice said.

"There is no other purpose for the meeting," she added. "And we have a document, we also have a number of assurances and a number of understandings that now will need to be codified by the six parties."

Securing a verification regime with the isolated country, which US President George W. Bush once branded as part of an "axis of evil", would represent a huge diplomatic success in the waning months of the Republican administration.

Washington removed North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism on October 11 following an agreement with the East Asian nation to verify its nuclear program.

The communist regime agreed to dismantle its nuclear installations and allow International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors to return after having barred them from visiting nuclear facilities.

But Pyongyang has slowed down the dismantlement process, contesting the verification protocol in order to protest delays in the delivery of energy assistance it had been promised by its six-party talks partners.

- AFP/yt