US chief negotiator Christopher Hill to the six-party talks
aimed at resolving the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue on Thursday
morning said the one-week delay of the talks does not affect the
overall atmosphere.
According to Hill, this fresh phase of the six-party talks was
previously scheduled to be held in last week. He said the one-week
delay was "not too bad."
Hill said the second phase of the sixth round of the talks would
be started at four o'clock on Thursday afternoon, prior to which
the US delegation would respectively meet with the other five
delegations to the talks, namely North and South Korean, the
Chinese, the Russian and the Japanese delegations.
On the planned meeting with the North Korean delegation, Hill
said "there were some issues that the two parties did not have a
chance to stir," adding that they would try to figure out what to
do with that "big gap."
Hill noted that during the opening meeting of the fresh round of
the talks, China would probably lay out a schedule for the next
couple of days and part of the schedule would be on hearing the
report of all working groups and the report from the expert team
which had been to North Korea for a study on the denuclearization
arrangements earlier this month.
"That will obviously take up some time," Hill added.
(Xinhua News Agency September 27, 2007)
