US Looking to Guarantee Progress at Next 6-Party Talks

WASHINGTON _ The top U.S. nuclear envoy on Friday said he would be looking for signs from North Korea that the upcoming denuclearization talks in September will produce a tangible agreement.

Arriving in Geneva for the second round of working-group meetings on improving Washington-Pyongyang ties, Christopher Hill said the six-party talks are starting an "ambitious, but a very necessary task" toward North Korea's complete denuclearization.

South and North Korea, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan are members of the six-way forum aimed at dismantling Pyongyang's nuclear weapons and programs.

An agreement reached on Feb. 13 lays out a phased pathway toward this goal, starting with the shutdown of North Korea's key atomic facilities, already accomplished. The next phase involves disablement of the facilities and the North's complete declaration of nuclear programs.

The U.S.-North Korea working group talks, to be held over the weekend, precede the six-party plenary session expected by mid-September.

"It's my hope that we will see that we have a basis for going to the plenary meeting...and that we will have a basis for reaching an agreement on the implementation of a declaration and disablement," Hill told reporters in Geneva.

The transcript of his comments was released in Washington.

But Hill would not elaborate on what the benchmarks are. "I will know it when I see it," he answered when asked what he would consider to be a success at the weekend talks.

On Thursday, U.S. President George W. Bush reaffirmed his commitment to the denuclearization process and urged North Korean leader Kim Jong-il to do the same.

"It's his choice to make. I've made my choice," Bush said at a press roundtable.

"The question is, can it happen before I am through? Yes, it can. I hope so," he said. "The North Korea issue is the issue that we are spending a lot of time on, and hopefully we can get completed."

(Yonhap)