U.S. top nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill said Friday that he will attend the six-party talks in Beijing aimed at ending the nuclear programs of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).
"I will be heading off to the region next week for a sort of quick round of consultations and to attend a six-party plenary session, which we expect to happen sometime in the middle of next week," Hill said at a briefing at the State Department.
Although the exact date has not been decided yet, the Chinese hosts are talking to various participants in the six-party talks to try to schedule a date, Hill said.
U.S., Russian and Chinese experts were able to inspect all the sites they wished to at the DPRK's Yongbyon nuclear facility and they had discussed in detail how the DPRK might disable the nuclear facility, Hill said.
"They have been able to work very closely with the North Koreans, enough so that we believe there's a basis for sitting down in the plenary and now working out ... how we're going to disable these facilities," Hill said.
"On the basis of their report to the six parties, we would then try in the six parties to try to draw up a sort of a work plan which would get us to the end of the calendar year '07 and would result in the full declaration of their nuclear programs and their disablement of nuclear programs," Hill added.
Officials from the United States, China and Russia headed Wednesday to the nuclear facility of the DPRK to study how to disable it. This has been regarded as another positive step by the DPRK toward its nuclear disarmament.
Source: Xinhua
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