China set to circulate draft of verification protocol

BEIJING, Dec. 9 (Yonhap) -- Negotiators were to begin full-scale efforts Tuesday to reach a deal on how to inspect North Korea's clandestine nuclear facilities as host China prepared to draft a verification deal.

South Korea's top envoy Kim Sook said China will circulate it on Tuesday to
enable the related parties to concentrate on the main issues.
"There was no progress (on the verification issue)," Kim Sook told reporters
Monday night after the first day of talks.
The other two agenda items are ways to establish a peace mechanism in Northeast
Asia and complete promised energy aid for the North. Kim said there is no gap on
the two issues.
South Korea, which chairs the energy working group, proposed wrapping up the
energy delivery by March of next year, and the other nations gave it a nod,
according to Kim.
The envoy, however, expected difficult negotiations on the verification issue.
"I felt that North Korea is not ready yet to have additional discussions and
reach a compromise," he said.
In its bilateral talks with the U.S. in early October, North Korea agreed to
allow international inspectors to make field visits, review related documents,
and interview technicians. But it is objecting to sampling, which the U.S. and
other nations consider crucial to checking the accuracy of Pyongyang's
self-claimed details of its nuclear inventory.
Kim said a verification deal is a condition for the energy aid.
"As we can't resolve one thing, leaving the other unresolved, the two things are
comprehensively connected," he said, signaling a push for a package deal.
Washington's top envoy Christopher Hill maintained his cautious outlook.
"We'll see what the verification paper looks like tomorrow ... I think it's
premature to say that (there is a possibility of a deal)," Hill told reporters
Monday night.
With the U.S. and its allies focused on the nuclear verification, the North
reiterated that it has a different priority.
"This round of talks is a gathering aimed at finalizing the implementation of the
Oct. 3 agreement that stipulates the action plan for the second phase of (the
three-tier) denuclearization process," the Chosun Sinbo newspaper, published by
pro-Pyongyang residents in Japan, said Monday.
"The core agenda to be discussed at the talks is to complete the economic
assistance from the five parties," added the newspaper, which echoes the North's
political stance.
Under the deal last year, the North began disabling its main plutonium-producing
reactor in Yongbyon in return for the promised delivery of 1 million tons of
heavy fuel. About half of it has been shipped to the North so far.
lcd@yna.co.kr
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