North Korea 'ready to halt nuclear programme'

North Korea has expressed a “readiness” to abolish its nuclear programme, a Japanese official said today.

Vice-Foreign Minister Ichiro Aisawa was speaking after meeting in Beijing with Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi, China’s chief negotiator at this week’s six-nation talks on the North Korean nuclear standoff.

Aisawa said Wang told him the “premise” behind a previous proposal by North Korea to freeze its nuclear activities was its readiness to scrap its atomic programme.

“During my meeting with Vice Minister Wang, he said North Korea had expressed to China its readiness to completely abandon its nuclear development, and said that the freeze was premised on that,” Aisawa said in comments broadcast in Tokyo by the NHK network.

In December North Korea proposed freezing its nuclear activities in return for economic aid and other concessions from the United States.

Six-nation talks on the North Korean nuclear dispute are scheduled to begin Wednesday in Beijing.

In Seoul, it was disclosed that the United States was considering a proposal by Seoul to encourage North Korea to freeze its nuclear weapons programme.

Senior South Korean nuclear negotiator Lee Soo-hyuck did not give details of the proposal, but said it entailed delivering “countermeasures” to North Korea in exchange for stopping and eventually dismantling its nuclear programmes.