DILI (AFP) — A top US envoy expressed hope Sunday that he and his North Korean counterpart would make progress in negotiations on ending Pyongyang's nuclear weapons drive at talks this week in Singapore.
"We'll see if North Korea is ready to discuss a declaration," US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Christopher Hill told journalists during a visit to the East Timorese capital.
Hill, Washington's point man for the North Korea talks, said he hoped he and his counterpart Kim Kye-Gwan would "make some progress on that, and then we can maybe move on." The pair last met in Geneva last month.
Washington has been pushing North Korea to come clean on its entire nuclear programme as a key step in a 2007 six-nation denuclearisation deal that also involves China, Japan, Russia and South Korea.
The deal grants the North energy aid and major diplomatic and security benefits in return for full denuclearisation.
The current phase of the deal required the North to disable its main plutonium-producing plants and declare all nuclear activities by the end of 2007.
The North, which last tested an atomic weapon in October 2006, says it submitted the declaration last November, but the United States says Pyongyang has not accounted for all its nuclear activities.
Hill is due to travel from East Timor to Singapore on Monday. After meeting with Kim, he is to travel to Beijing on Wednesday to brief Chinese officials, the State Department said. China chairs the six-party talks.
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