Hill says nuke talks in very tough phase

SEOUL/INCHEON, Sept. 30 (Yonhap) -- Chief U.S. nuclear envoy Christopher Hill said Tuesday that talks with North Korea were in a very difficult situation, and he was cautious about predicting the outcome of his rare trip this week to Pyongyang aimed at saving a moribund multilateral disarmament deal.

"I would say we are in a very difficult, very tough phase of the negotiation,"
Hill told reporters after meeting with his South Korean counterpart in Seoul. "I
will be heading up there (North Korea) tomorrow."
Hill's "make-or-break" trip to the North Korean capital, the third following
previous ones last year, comes after the communist state announced it was about
to reactivate a plutonium reprocessing plant in the Yongbyon nuclear complex.
Hill, the assistant secretary of state, said he will focus his "open-ended" trip
on trying to reach a deal on ways of verifying the North's recent nuclear
declaration and completing the second of the three-tier denuclearization process.

"We are going to try to get through the phase two issues, namely, the need to
have an agreement on what verification will look like," he said.
The envoy said the Bush administration, which is in its final months, is eager to
wrap up the protracted second phase.
"And what we also want to do is to move on and complete our obligations in the
phase two which includes, of course, taking them off the terrorism list," he
said.
In the second stage, North Korea is required to disable its main nuclear
facilities in Yongbyon and fully account for its nuclear program in return for
economic assistance and political incentives.
But the North has halted the disabling work in protest of Washington's delay in
removing Pyongyang from the terrorism list and threatened to restart the Yongbyon
facilities.
Hill criticized Pyongyang's move to resume its nuclear activity.
"I would say what they have been doing, obviously, goes counter to the spirit of
what we have been trying to accomplish because all of the disablement, the
shutdown was for the purpose of abandonment. It was not for the purpose of any
efforts of reversal," he said.
Standing next to Hill, meanwhile, South Korean envoy Kim Sook said they had
consultations on "important agenda at very important time."
"We talked mostly about a verification protocol," Kim said. "In a nutshell, we
shared hope that North Korea will agree on a verification protocol as early as
possible, thus creating a condition that the U.S. will remove North Korea from
the terrorism list."
Arriving in Seoul earlier in the day, Hill was cautious about whether he will be
able to break the logjam.
"We thought it would be useful to try to have those discussions in Pyongyang.
That's why I'm going," he said "So, let's see if we can come up with the measures
or they allow us to verify the declaration," he said.
Asked about how long he is going to stay in North Korea, he said, "Let's first see
whether we are going to make some progress."
Hill said he will come back to Seoul before flying to Beijing, the next leg of
his regional tour that will also take him to Tokyo. Sources said he is likely to
stay in North Korea for a few days.
In Washington, the State Department said earlier that Hill's planned visit to
Pyongyang is also intended to decipher the North's intention behind its recent
steps.
"Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice obviously believes it's important for Chris
Hill to go out to the region, particularly to go to Pyongyang, to get a sense on
the ground as to what's going on and obviously to talk with North Korean
officials about why they've taken the steps they've taken," the department's
deputy spokesman, Robert Wood, said.
lcd@yna.co.kr