The US is to put forward new suggestions about the draft of
common document at the six-party talks on the nuclear issue of the
Korean Peninsula, US chief negotiator Christopher Hill said in
Beijing Saturday night.
Hill told reporters when returning to hotel that the US and
several other delegations to the talks have difficulties to reach a
common document during Saturday's discussion.
"But we are trying to work with it, and we are really trying to
reach something with it," Hill said.
"We are going to try to come up with some other ideas in the
coming few hours," Hill said, adding that he had made a lot of
calls back to Washington Saturday.
On the current draft of common document proposed by China to the
other delegations on Friday, Hill said there are still some
problems with the text.
"We are setting principles, but being in general principles
doesn't mean you create ambiguities and lead the way to confusion
and lead the way to problems in the future," Hill said.
"We stress clarity with these principles," Hi said and adding
"What we do now needs to help what we do in the future and not
cause more confusion in what we do in the future."
But he didn't elaborate the principles and difficulties.
"I can't be more specific, and I'd love to be more specific,"
Hill said, "but I don't want to be specific in a way that will make
it more difficult for me to work in the next 24 hours."
"How these all turn out, we don't know yet," Hill said.
The fourth round of the six-party talks, which involves China,
North Korea, the US, South Korea, Russia and Japan, resumed on
Tuesday after a five-week recess.
Hill said China, the host country, is trying very hard to bridge
the differences among the concerned parties.
"We have to give the Chinese a lot of credits," Hill said.
"Our hope was that tomorrow would be the last day. We'd like to
catch a flight back to the US," Hill said, "but we don't know if
that's going to be possible but certainly we are really trying to
wrap this up as soon as possible."
"Because we really want to get on with the next phase of getting
very specific and going into the questions like verification which
are central to this agreement," he said.
The six parties' efforts to reach a set of general principles in
the form of a common document was stalled due to unsolved disputes
between North Korea and the US.
(Xinhua News Agency September 18, 2005)