By SPA
Washington : US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill will travel to Beijing this weekend for discussions with Chinese officials on ending North Korea’s nuclear-weapons programs, the State Department said Friday.
“He’ll have further discussions there with Chinese officials on how to move the six-party process forward,” deputy spokesman Tom Casey told reporters, adding that Hill’s talks would take place on Saturday. The spokesman said he did not know whether Hill’s North Korean counterpart, Kim Kye-gwan, would also be in Beijing.
Hill told reporters in Bangkok, Thailand that his discussions with Chinese officials in Beijing earlier this week had been good and “there is an idea we might try to arrange something this weekend.”
North Korea pledged to abandon all nuclear-weapons programs in exchange for economic and diplomatic benefits under a 2005 multilateral deal between the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan, and Russia.