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No meeting between IAEA chief and top N. Korea negotiator

RIA Novosti

14/03/2007 10:55 TOKYO, March 14 (RIA Novosti) - The head of the United Nations nuclear agency has been unable to meet in Pyongyang with the top North Korean nuclear negotiator to discuss the shutdown of the country's nuclear facilities, a Japanese news agency said Wednesday.

Following the latest round of the six-nation talks aimed at resolving the North Korean nuclear standoff, Russia, the United States, South Korea and China agreed to provide humanitarian aid to North Korea, and North Korea agreed to shut down its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon.

Kyodo News, citing an IAEA spokesperson, said that Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), met with another deputy foreign minister instead of Kim Kye Gwan, the head of the North Korean delegation to the six-party talks.

ElBaradei is expected to return to Beijing Wednesday to discuss the results of the meeting with Christopher Hill, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs and head of the American delegation to the six-nation talks.

Hill is due to arrive in Beijing Wednesday to attend the sessions of two working groups, on denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula, headed by China, and a Russia-led group on peace and security in Northeast Asia.

The two groups have been established in line with a joint statement outlining the initial stage of denuclearization, which was adopted at the fifth round of the talks February 13.

Besides the shutdown of the nuclear reactor, the denuclearization plan suggests the return of IAEA inspectors to the country.

In exchange for concessions by North Korea, Washington also pledged to strike North Korea off its list of countries sponsoring terrorism and to lift financial sanctions on Pyongyang.

Ahead of the next round, scheduled for March 19, negotiators have set up five working groups to help the parties along the way toward implementing the September 2005 agreement.

In September 2005, Pyongyang promised to dismantle its nuclear program in exchange for aid and security guarantees. The negotiations broke off later that year when Washington blocked the regime's $24 million account at a Macao bank over alleged counterfeiting and money laundering.

They did not resume until December 2006, two months after North Korea reported carrying out its first nuclear bomb test.