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US - North Korea Talks 'Very Constructive'

By Peter Heinlein
United Nations
06 March 2007

A senior U.S. official says talks on normalizing relations with North Korea have been "very constructive." Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, the lead negotiator in the talks, says he hopes they will eventually lead to peace on the Korean peninsula. But as VOA's Peter Heinlein reports from New York, Hill said Pyongyang must first "come clean" about its nuclear intentions.

Speaking to a meeting of the Korea Society Tuesday, Assistant Secretary of State Hill cautioned against expecting too much from these initial exploratory talks with his North Korean counterpart. But he described Monday's opening session as "very constructive" and "very businesslike".

The talks are an outcome of the six-party deal reached last month in Beijing, in which North Korea agreed to shut down its nuclear weapons program in return for energy aid.

Hill expressed U.S. concerns Tuesday that Pyongyang is trying to enrich uranium. He said progress in normalizing relations will depend on North Korea's willingness to reveal its nuclear intentions.

"There is a question about how far they've gotten in the process, have they been able to produce highly enriched uranium, or were they not able to do it because it is a difficult task, nonetheless they need to come clean on it, explain what they've been doing, why they have been doing it, and ultimately they would need to abandon it. So it's pretty clear that we need North Korea to tell us what's in this effort," said Mr. Hill.

Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte said Tuesday that Washington has no doubt that North Korea has a uranium enrichment program. He made the comment during a visit to the South Korean capital, Seoul.

North Korea has never publicly acknowledged that it has enriched uranium. It tested a nuclear weapon last October, but it is believed to have used plutonium rather than uranium.

The two days of talks on normalizing relations mark the first time the United States and North Korea have held bilateral meetings since 2000, when a top North Korean envoy went to Washington in hopes of improving ties. That effort ended in failure.

Assistant Secretary of State Hill was sober in his assessment of the New York talks. He told a questioner that the normalization effort "does not mean all our problems with North Korea will go away." He said that "obviously we will have continuing differences."

The United States has not had diplomatic relations with North Korea since the country was created after World War II. Hill expressed hope Tuesday that work can soon start on a process of what he called "identifying how to create a peace mechanism on the Korean peninsula" that would replace the armistice that ended the Korean War in 1953.