US Urges N. Korea to Answer Within Days
By Kim Yon-se
Staff Reporter
Top U.S. nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill Wednesday urged North Korea to answer within a few days if it is willing to restart the stalled six-party talks on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
Sources here said the chief U.S. envoy is highly likely to meet North Korean negotiator Kim Kye-kwan in Jakarta on Friday.
Hill asked the North to respond to Washington's offer soon, insisting there was some progress at a meeting with his North Korean counterpart Kim Kye-gwan in Geneva, Switzerland, last month.
They discussed the issue of resolving the standoff over Pyongyang's promise to declare all of its nuclear programs.
Hill said, ``We will have to see whether we can hear anything new from the DPRK (North Korea) on this in the next few days. We do feel that some of the actual differences with respect to the declaration have narrowed.''
The North has said it already provided a list of its nuclear programs several months ago, but Hill said it was just research material which lacks explanations on suspicions that Pyongyang has run a uranium-enrichment program and transferred nuclear technology to Syria. The secretive nation denies the allegations.
Hill stressed that the U.S. is very concerned about time limits, adding that it wants the declaration issue wrapped up at an early date.
However, he cautioned the media against using terms like ``close to a deal.'' The envoy said he thinks journalists have to be very careful when talking about a process like this and saying ``close.''
``You don't know how close you are until you actually achieve it. So we haven't achieved the declaration yet,'' Hill said.
North Korea's Kim said the new South Korean government will stop expanding the inter-Korean industrial complex in Gaeseong unless North Korea abandons its nuclear programs.
Pyongyang expelled 11 South Korean government officials from the Gaeseong Joint Industrial Complex in the North as an apparent protest. The country also test-launched a volley of missiles into the West Sea.
On Tuesday, Hill and his South Korean counterpart Chun Yung-woo urged North Korea not to waste any more time.
Hill said after meeting with Chun, ``When we come to the point where it is not going to work, we will certainly have to consider what else to do.''