The six-party talks working group on the
denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula began its first meeting
Saturday morning in Beijing, focusing on specific measures of the
denuclearization.
The meeting started at 10:00 AM at the Diaoyutai State
Guesthouse, the same venue for the six-party nuclear talks.
Wu Dawei, chief negotiator of the Chinese delegation as well as
the head of the working group, presided over the meeting.
Wu said in his opening remarks before the plenary meeting that
during the two-day working group meeting, concerned parties may
have bilateral consultations on Saturday afternoon, and another
plenary session was expected to be held on Sunday.
Representatives of the other five parties are, Minister Kim
Song-gi of North Korean Embassy to China, US top nuclear negotiator
Christopher Hill, chief negotiator of?South Korea?Chun
Yung-woo, and Russian Ambassador-at-large Grigory Berdennikov.
Japan was represented by its ambassador in charge of the Korean
Peninsula nuclear issue Suda Akio and its chief negotiator for
six-party talks Kenichiro Sasae.
The six parties agreed that the three working groups would meet
ahead of the sixth round of talks scheduled to start next
Monday.
Besides the denuclearization working group, the energy
cooperation working group, headed by the?South
Korea?side, started its first meeting Thursday afternoon. The
working group on Northeast Asia security, headed by the Russian
side, launched its meeting on Friday.
During the last round of talks, which ended on Feb. 13, the six
parties reached consensus on setting up five working groups to
discuss details of ways to implement the initial steps of Sept. 19
joint statement.
The other two working groups on the normalization of North
Korea-US and North Korea-Japan relations had already held their
first meetings in New York and Hanoi in early March,
respectively.
(Xinhua News Agency March 17, 2007)
