Top U.S. nuclear envoy arrives in Pyongyang

PYONGYANG/BEIJING, Oct. 1 Kyodo - Top U.S. nuclear envoy Christopher Hill arrived in Pyongyang on Wednesday for talks aimed at salvaging the stalled six-party deal for denuclearizing North Korea and preventing the country from restoring a facility that had produced
nuclear material.

Hill, who is assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs,
is expected to hold talks with his North Korean counterpart Kim Kye Gwan and
other officials during his stay in the North Korean capital.
Hill said in Seoul on Tuesday that he will talk about ways to verify North
Korea's nuclear information, the source of a dispute that has held up the
denuclearization process.
''We are going to talk about what we need for verification,'' Hill said upon
arrival in South Korea on Tuesday. ''The plan was always to get a verifiable
declaration.''
While the United States is pushing for a verification regime that involves
access to all facilities deemed necessary as well as the collecting of samples,
North Korea is resisting.
Washington has said it would not take North Korea off its blacklist of
terrorist sponsors until an agreement on the verification regime is in place.
Angered by that decision, North Korea has warned it would resume operations at
the Yongbyon nuclear complex, which was in the process of being disabled as
part of the six-party agreement.
North Korea stopped disablement activities at the Yongbyon complex in
mid-August and began work to restore the facilities last month.
Pyongyang told the International Atomic Energy Agency last week it plans to
begin reintroducing nuclear materials into one of the facilities at Yongbyon,
and barred inspectors from the U.N. nuclear watchdog from entering that
facility.
Hill's trip from Wednesday is his third to the country. Hill, who was driven
through the truce village of Panmunjeom, arrived at a Pyongyang hotel in the
early afternoon.
Hill's meeting with North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim will be their first
since a meeting of the six countries was held in Beijing in July.
The U.S. envoy is expected to travel to Seoul after visiting Pyongyang. That
will be followed by trips to China and Japan, two other countries involved in
the six-party process.
North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency reported about Hill's arrival
in a short dispatch that did not include specifics such as who he will meet
during his stay.