Nuclear talks show signs of progress

(ATTN: CORRECTS the name of country in 4th para to the U.S.)
By Lee Chi-dong
BEIJING, Dec. 9 (Yonhap) -- Negotiators in the six-way talks on North Korea's
nuclear program cleared one of their biggest obstacles by reaching consensus on
permitting international inspectors to take samples from the North's nuclear
facilities, an informed source said Tuesday.

"Sampling is not a contentious issue any more," the source said on condition of
anonymity after senior envoys from North Korea and its five dialogue partners
ended their second-day session. "Additional discussions are needed on other
issues."
Earlier in the day, host China distributed a four-page draft of a deal on ways to
inspect Pyongyang's secret nuclear facilities.
South Korea and the U.S. expressed cautious satisfaction with it, while North
Korea gave no immediate response.
"My impression is that China prepared for it seriously," Kim Sook, Seoul's top
envoy to the six-way talks underway here told reporters after the second day of
negotiations. "I think it will be enough to be used as a basis for drawing up a
verification protocol."
He said that the current session of the six-party talks also involving Russia and
Japan will likely end on Wednesday as scheduled.
Putting verification methods in the six-way written agreement is a primary but
tough task in this week's talks, the first such session in five months.
At the end of talks in July, North Korea agreed with its dialogue partners --
South Korea, the U.S., China, Russia, and Japan -- to allow their inspectors to
choose "visits to facilities, review of documents, interviews with technical
personnel and other measures unanimously agreed upon among the six parties" for
verification.
The planned verification protocol will provide more detailed guidelines on which
inspection measures will be used.
Before the new round of talks, North Korea had been sensitive to the word
"sampling" -- which the U.S. says is a crucial tool for thorough verification --
prompting China to find an alternative expression.
South Korean negotiators informally told reporters that the wording itself is not
important, as long as sampling is technically guaranteed.
Washington's representative to the talks confirmed sampling is addressed in the
draft, but without detailed wording.
"It is fair to say yes," Christopher Hill said in response to a question on
whether the draft touches on U.S. demands for scientific procedures, including
sampling.
"We've taken the draft with great seriousness. We worked very hard ourselves
today to make sure it encompasses what we need to do to get on with
verification," he said, "We need a verification process that's clear and that
does not leave ambiguity, and that certainly, I think, is what the draft tries to
address and what we tried to address in our comments."
lcd@yna.co.kr
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