SEOUL (South Korea): The United States is looking to build on momentum created by North Korea shutting down its nuclear reactor and will start deliberations on removing it from a list of terrorism-sponsoring states, the main US envoy on the issue said on Monday.
In an interview with the news agency, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill laid out a busy agenda of the steps Washington hopes can be made in the reconciliation process as Pyongyang lays aside its nuclear weapons programme. That would include talks on ending the 54-year-old cease-fire that halted the Korean War, as well as setting up a regional security forum in northeast Asia.
“If North Korea wants to denuclearise, all of this stuff is very doable,” Hill told the news agency.
The first step will come this week as Hill is set to meet in Beijing with the other countries involved in the negotiations: China, Japan, Russia and the two Koreas.
There, he said negotiators look to lay out a timeframe for a meeting as soon as next month between foreign ministers of all six nations, likely also in Beijing ahead of an Asian-Pacific summit in Australia in early September.
Hill has frequently spoken of his aspiration that the six-nation talks on North Korea could lead to a more lasting security regime in the region where countries have clashed over territorial, historical and military disputes.
He said the ministers’ aim would be to issue a statement laying out the vision for a northeast Asian forum “where it can deal with the problems of trying to make this a better neighbourhood”.
On a national level, the United States is willing to start the process of removing the North from a list of state sponsors of terrorism, Hill said.
“We’ll see when we can complete that because we’ll see how far the North Koreans are prepared to move on denuclearisation,” he said.
The designation rankles the North and it has called for it to be lifted along with other economic sanctions before it moves ahead on disarmament. The North Korean regime has not been directly tied to any terrorist action since it planted a bomb on a South Korean plane in 1987.
Hill said talks on replacing the Korean War cease-fire with a peace regime that would formally end the conflict could start next year “with understanding that we can’t complete that until we complete denuclearisation”.
The United States fought with South Korea under a UN mandate in the 1950-53 conflict that ended in an armistice, leaving the sides still technically at war.
Alongside one million tons of oil, the North is to receive for disabling its nuclear programmes, Hill said Washington would look at other incentives such as humanitarian aid.“We have never had a quarrel with the North Korean people,” he said. “We want to help the North Korean people and will continue to look for options to support them.”—AP
