North Korean and US delegates meet on resuming talks
Following on from meetings between officials from North and South Korea, the United States has held face-to-face talks with delegates from the reclusive nation.
The talks Monday may be the first tentative steps toward resuming six-party talks with Pyongyang over ending the country’s nuclear program and normalising international relations.
“We had initial presentations of our respective positions,” said Clifford Hart, the US special envoy to the six-party talks on North Korea, adding that further talks would be held Tuesday.
Officials from both countries met at the Kempinski Hotel in Geneva, Switzerland for the two hour talks.
“We are moving in a positive direction,” US Ambassador Stephen Bosworth said after the meeting. “We have narrowed some differences but we still have differences that we have to resolve.”
The meeting between US and North Korean delegates comes after “constructive” talks were held with South Korea.
In a previous meeting in July, US officials had said that North Korean engagement with South Korea was a major prerequisite to the resumption of six-party talks.
Former US President George W. Bush initiated the six-party talks in the previous decade, but they stalled and ultimately collapsed in 2008.
Both Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia are involved in the talks.
Washington has repeatedly called on the North Korean government to undertake a series of prerequisite steps, such as halting missile and nuclear tests, and further development of nuclear weapons, to show it is interested in coming back to talks.
US officials have said the talks Monday and Tuesday are “exploratory” in nature, aimed at gauging North Korea’s reaction to such requests.
Source:Europe News.Net
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