GENEVA (AFP) — North Korea has agreed to make a full declaration of all its nuclear programmes and to disable them by the end of the year, the chief US negotiator said on Sunday following talks here.
"One thing that we agreed on is that the DPRK (North Korea) will provide a full declaration of all of their nuclear programmes and will disable their nuclear programs by the end of this year, 2007," Christopher Hill told journalists after two days of talks in Geneva.
North Korea has already shut down a key nuclear reactor at Yongbyon under an agreement reached on February 13.
Under the deal, North Korea agreed to dismantle its nuclear programme in return for aid and security and diplomatic guarantees, notably normalising ties with the United States.
The US suspects the North, which conducted its first atomic weapons test in October, of running a secretive highly enriched uranium programme in addition to the programmes it has already admitted to.
When asked whether the declaration would have to include the suspension of all uranium activities to be satisfactory to Washington, Hill replied: "Full means full."
He stressed that talks would continue under the six-party framework that has addressed the issue of the secretive communist state's nuclear programme, with the next plenary session expected in Beijing later this month.
"Of course we will have to work out some of the details of this in the six-party process... but we had a very good understanding of this today and an understanding that we need to pick up the pace and get through this phase in 2007."
The two Koreas, the US, China, Japan and Russia are all involved in the multilateral process.
Hill said the ultimate aim was not just declarations and disabling of facilities but the full denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula and the forging of closer regional ties.
"We're in this for an even broader purpose which is to help create the sense of neighbourhood and bring all the countries together" as part of a North East Asian peace and security framework, which is scheduled to be the focus of further discussions in 2008, he said.
"The six-party process offers them (the North Koreans) some benefits that they don't have now because of these very much misguided nuclear programs," he added.
One such benefit is being removed from Washington's list of countries that sponsor "terror."
Hill said only that the two sides had held "good discussions" on this issue, and did not divulge any information on when such a delisting could come within the overall framework of negotiations.
Amid other bilateral talks, Japan and North Korea will meet face-to-face in the Mongolian capital Ulan Bator next week.
The countries' relationship is strained not only because of Pyongyang's nuclear activities but also due to North Korea's kidnapping of Japanese civilians during the 1970s and 80s.
North Korea has acknowledged kidnapping 13 Japanese to train its spies. It returned five victims and their families, and says the rest are dead.
Hill emphasised on Saturday that the "abduction" issue was also of great importance to the United States.
"The importance that I attach to progress on the DPRK (North Korea)-Japan relationship, the importance that my government attaches to progress and to a positive atmosphere was well understood" by the North Koreans, he said.
US President George W. Bush notoriously included North Korea in the "Axis of Evil" along with Iran and Iraq in his State of the Union address in 2002, but Washington has subsequently shown itself much more willing to negotiate with the isolationist regime of Kim Jong-Il.
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