N. Korea Talks to occupy Next Week

Six-nations aimed at North Korea’s nuclear disarmament will begin on July 26 in Beijing the foreign ministries of China and South Korea announced Tuesday.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has welcomed North Korea’s decision to return to the six-party talks on its nuclear disarmament.

The six-party talks are aimed at ending North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. The parties to the talks are the United States, China, Russia, Japan, South Korea, and North Korea. The talks began in 2003, but earlier this year, North Korea issued a statement saying it was suspending its participation in the talks.

The end date for the talks has not been set.

In the event of an agreement, diplomats and analysts have said that the recent South Korea proposal offering massive energy assistance to the North Koreans is to persuade it back to the table after a 13-month boycott.

“Our government once again credits the efforts made by participating countries to resume the talks, and we will play an active role to make substantive progress to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue at this round of the six-party talks,” the South Korean Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

In the earlier of this month, at a meeting in Beijing, U.S. officials already said that North Korean diplomats have agreed to rejoin the talks during the week. From Tuesday Beijing and Seoul confirmed the starting date for the meeting.

The diplomatic breakthrough came five months after North Korea declared it had nuclear weapons and would never return to the talks because of what it called the Bush administration’s “hostile policy.”

Officials remain cautiously optimistic about a possible breakthrough in Beijing later this month, but have noted that a great divide remains between the North Korean and U.S. positions.