The chief North Korean and U.S. negotiators, Kim Kye Gwan and Christopher Hill, met for the two-hour bilateral negotiations over lunch in a Beijing hotel on the second day of six-nation talks aimed at persuading Pyongyang to give up its nuclear program, a source close to the negotiations said.
The source quoted Kim Kye Gwan as saying that North Korea was ready to halt or freeze its nuclear program and grant UN inspectors access to its nuclear sites if it was provided with $100 million-worth of fuel and could restore diplomatic relations with the U.S. Hill said North Korea must dismantle its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of Pyongyang to stop production of weapons-grade plutonium.
The original resolution plan, which China devised and submitted to the current six-party talks in Beijing, said Yongbyon must be frozen or sealed within two months and North Korea provided with alternative energy sources.
Hill said he did not like the word "freeze," making it clear that not all differences had been ironed out. Kim Kye Gwan said the talks inspired cautious optimism.
The North Korean negotiator also had a 20-minute conversation with Japan's envoy to the talks, but no details have been revealed.
The six-party talks have been ongoing since 2003 and involve delegations from the United States, North and South Korea, Russia, China and Japan.
In September 2005, North Korea signed a "joint statement" committing itself to abandoning its nuclear program in exchange for aid and security guarantees. But Pyongyang boycotted the talks two months later following Washington's financial sanctions. Since then, the North has conducted its first nuclear test and tested ballistic missiles.
The first nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula ended in 1994 after then-U.S. President Bill Clinton secured an agreement with North Korea to freeze the Yongbyon nuclear reactor in exchange for an international U.S.-led project to build a new nuclear power plant with two light-water reactors for the country to prevent it from producing weapons-grade plutonium.
The U.S. then said it would supply North Korea with fuel for thermo-power plants to make up for losses from suspended nuclear production until the new plant was built. The sides also began negotiating a resumption of bilateral relations, as the two countries are formally at war as no final treaty has been concluded since American involvement in the 1950-53 Korean War.
The change of administration in the United States dashed those agreements. The new president, George W. Bush, declared war on terrorism and branded North Korea part of the "axis of evil." The nuclear power plant project was scrapped and fuel supplies for thermal power generation halted.
North Korea then unsealed the Yongbyon reactor and began producing weapons-grade plutonium in defiance of international regulations.
