By Xinhua
Washington : US and North Korea will meet later this week to seek a breakthrough in the stalled six party talks on the Korean peninsula’s nuclear issue, a senior US official has said.
US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill and the North Korea’s Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan will hold talks in Geneva Thursday, focussing on North Korea’s delay in declaring details of its nuclear weapons programme, a senior State Department official said Tuesday.
“The discussions are within the context of the six-party talks about how to move this process forward,” said the official who did not want to be identified.
Under an agreement reached in October 2007 at the six party talks, North Korea agreed to disable its key nuclear facilities at the Yongbyon complex and to declare all other nuclear programmes by the end of last year.
The six parties involved in the talks are the US, North Korea, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia.
North Korea has denied that it missed the deadline to submit the declaration, saying: “other participating nations delayed the fulfilment of their commitments. The DPRK (North Korea’s official name) is compelled to adjust the tempo of the disablement of some nuclear facilities on the principle of ‘action for action'”.