The six-nation talks on dismantling North Korea's nuclear weapons programme will resume in Beijing, capital of China, on February 8, 2007.
The negotiations had broken down in December 2006 over the United States' allegations of money-laundering by North Korean companies.
"We believe that the six-party talks is a gradual and complicated process, but it is the best mechanism for arriving at the goal of de-nuclearising the Korean peninsula," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said on Tuesday at a briefing in Beijing after announcing the date of the talks.
North Korea had abandoned the talks in November 2005 after the US Treasury Department described a China-based bank that did business with North Korea as a money-laundering threat.
China, the US, North Korea, South Korea, Japan and Russia met again in December 2006, but no progress was made.
The US Treasury Department had alleged that Banco Delta Asia SARL laundered money from North Korea and worked with front companies trafficking drugs for the regime of Kim Jong Il. Chinese officials responded by seizing the bank and freezing its assets, and other international banks severed their relationships with North Korea.
North Korea said it would not take part in discussions until the issue was settled.
US Treasury officials are meeting a North Korea delegation in Beijing on Tuesday to resume talks on the freezing of $24 million in North Korean accounts at the bank.
China is not involved in the separate financial discussions, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu Jiang said.
"We are prepared to go through these talks as long as it takes for us to get through our agenda," US Deputy Assistant Secretary Daniel Glaser was quoted as saying on Tuesday in Beijing before the start of the discussions.
North Korea must take "concrete" steps toward abandoning its nuclear weapons programme at the next round of talks, Japan's Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Seiji Suzuki said. "We will strongly seek from North Korea concrete action to give up its nuclear weapons," Suzuki told a news conference in Tokyo on Tuesday.
The Japanese Government will raise, during the negotiations, the issue of North Korea's kidnapping of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s, Suzuki said. North Korea has admitted abducting 13 Japanese, and it allowed five to return home in 2002. Japan says 17 citizens were kidnapped.
South Korea has called for "proactive and sincere" participation from the parties involved in the talks.Labels: International Politics |
