US meets North Korea for first nuclear arms talks

THE United States and North Korea held their first face-to-face meeting yesterday at the six-nation nuclear arms talks, and also met separately to discuss US financial restrictions on the communist regime that have been a key snag to the arms negotiations.

The main US nuclear envoy said no progress had been made at the talks seeking to persuade North Korea to dismantle its atomic weapons programme.

“We don’t have any breakthroughs to report,” Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill told reporters.

He said the meeting with the North Koreans had been characterised by a “healthy exchange of information.”

Although he declined to put a timeline on the nuclear talks, which began on Monday with no end date set, Hill said he hoped for progress in the coming days on an earlier pledge by the North Koreans to abandon their development of atomic weapons in exchange for aid.

“We cannot accept anything less than the goal of denuclearisation,” Hill said. “I really want to see something get done this week.”

Japan’s chief delegate, Kenichiro Sasae, said he hoped North Korea would “take a more forward-looking stance” when talks resume today.

“There is still a big gap remaining despite our earlier expectations for an early result,” chief Japanese delegate Kenichiro Sasae said. “There was nothing that we can be optimistic about.”

North Korea met individually with all the other countries at the talks except Japan.

The North agreed to return to the nuclear talks after its October 9 nuclear test explosion because the US said it could discuss the financial issue in separate meetings.