Seoul: Stalled North Korea nuclear talks could resume by June

May 16, 2008, 7:20 GMT

Seoul - Stalled six-nation talks on ending North Korea's nuclear programme could resume at the beginning of June, South Korea's lead negotiator said Friday after progress with Pyongyang on resolving sticking points in the negotiations.

North and South Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia, which last held talks in October, are now consulting one another on resuming their negotiations and, if their dialogue goes well, a new round of talks were expected to take place before June 15, Kim Sook told journalists in Seoul.

Kim made the comments a day after returning from a visit to China, the host of the nuclear talks, and before he departs for a weekend trip to Washington, where he is to meet with his US and Japanese counterparts.

Kim said the next round would focus on North Korea's promised declaration of its nuclear activities, facilities and materials, which has been the prime reason the negotiations have ground to a halt.

The United States had charged that North Korea had not offered a full and complete accounting of its nuclear activities, but in a sign of progress, Pyongyang last week turned over 18,822 pages of documents that the United States, after an initial review, said appeared to be a complete accounting of North Korea's plutonium programme.

The next round of nuclear talks would concentrate on Pyongyang's nuclear declaration, discuss ways to verify it and look ahead to the next step toward denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula, Kim said.

He added that he expected the talks would be difficult.