WASHINGTON (AFP) — US envoy Christopher Hill will leave here Tuesday for a trip to South Korea, Japan and China to pursue talks linked to a six-party deal to disable Pyongang's nuclear programs, officials said.
Hill is "going to visit South Korea, Japan and China, and all of these meetings are in connection with the six-party talks," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters without giving dates for each venue.
McCormack said Hill was present for a meeting here on Monday between US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi when they discussed the six-party talks and "how the process is going to evolve and move forward."
In February, North Korea agreed under a six-party deal with China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States to disable its nuclear programmes in exchange for much-needed energy aid and diplomatic benefits.
The North shut down its key Yongbyon reactor in July. Disablement, scheduled for completion by year-end, aims to make it and other facilities unusable for at least a year while talks on total denuclearization continue.
Russian, Chinese, US and South Korean experts were due to travel to North Korea later this week to assess progress in dismantling the Yongbyon nuclear plant.
Asked if the team would receive a declaration from North Korea, McCormack said "the deadline for it is the end of the year, and I would expect that we have something final from the North Koreans closer to the end of the year."
"It wouldn't surprise me if, along the way, they briefed up members of the six-party -- the other five members of the six parties on where they are in their declaration process," he said.
"It's important that this declaration be full, that it be complete and that it reassure all of the other five parties that North Korea is being completing forthcoming with the declaration," he added
The experts are to present a report ahead of six-nation talks to be held in Beijing from December 6 to 8, said deputy foreign minister Alexander Losyukov quoted by ITAR-TASS last Friday.
China, the United States, Japan and Russia are to join the two Koreas for the talks that could be held at the foreign ministers' level, said Losyukov.
Pyongyang will receive energy aid worth hundreds of millions of dollars in return for disablement and a full declaration of all its nuclear programs, including a suspected highly enriched uranium project.
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