The full session of the Six-Party
Talks on ending Pyongyang's nuclear program will resume on
Thursday, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said on Friday.
The four-day discussion will be the
second phase of the sixth round of the nuclear talks, which started
in March after February's landmark deal.
Under the agreement by Beijing,
Washington, Pyongyang, Seoul, Moscow and Tokyo, Pyongyang is
committed to disabling all of its nuclear facilities and to provide
a declaration of its nuclear program in exchange for energy
assistance and political concessions.
Pyongyang shut down its main nuclear
reactor at Yongbyon in July and nuclear envoys will meet next week
to set out a program for proceeding with this.
It is reported nuclear experts from
China, the United States and Russia visited Pyongyang's nuclear
facilities last week, discussed the technical details of disabling
them and agreed with Pyongyang on how to continue the work.
Earlier reports also said Pyongyang
wants to delay the meeting because it is busy preparing for an
October summit between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea
(DPRK) leader Kim Jong-il and Roh Moo-hyun, president of the
Republic of Korea.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang
Yu said on Tuesday that China's heavy oil assistance to the DPRK is
under way.
The first shipment of 50,000 tons
arrived in the country's Nampo port last Sunday as part of an
international effort to keep nuclear negotiations on track.
US President George W. Bush also
said this month that Washington would be willing to consider a
peace treaty with Pyongyang if it gave up its nuclear weapons
program, adding he would offer a new security arrangement for the
Korean peninsula.
(China Daily September 22,
2007)
