Top delegates to 6-way nuke talks to meet in Beijing Dec. 8

LIMA, Nov. 23 Kyodo - Chief delegates to the six-party talks aimed at denuclearizing North Korea will meet in Beijing from Dec. 8 to try to put in writing a scheme for verifying the information provided by Pyongyang on its nuclear programs, negotiation sources said Sunday.

China, host of the talks, has sounded out the other five countries on the
schedule and all of them, including North Korea, have basically agreed to it,
the sources said in Lima. China has not set an end date for the meeting.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also said Sunday that the next six-way
nuclear talks will be held Dec. 8 in China, telling reporters, ''We expect that
there...will be a push to finalize the verification protocol.''
Rice made the remarks on Air Force One bound for the United States from the
Peruvian capital where she and President George W. Bush attended meetings of
the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.
In the upcoming session, the chief envoys of the six countries -- the two
Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia -- are expected to aim at
putting a verbal agreement on verification methods reached between Washington
and Pyongyang last month in writing as a multilateral deal.
The six nations will also seek to come up with timetables for the disablement
of North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear complex as well as economic and energy
assistance to be given to Pyongyang by the other parties in exchange.
The United States is hoping that the next six-way talks will lead to the early
completion of the current second phase of denuclearization as it will likely be
the last multilateral meeting to be held under the administration of President
George W. Bush, according to a negotiation source.
The outgoing administration apparently wants to create a situation in which the
six-party talks would be ready to enter the next phase when Bush's second
four-year term expires in late January and he makes way for Barack Obama.
The second phase, which obliges Pyongyang to disable its nuclear facilities and
declare all its nuclear programs, is to be followed by the third phase in which
North Korea must give up all its fissile material.
The anticipated verification protocol would put in writing the mechanism for
checking the accuracy of North Korea's declaration of its nuclear programs
presented to parties to the six-way talks in June.
Meanwhile, Chinese President Hu Jintao and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev
reaffirmed during bilateral talks in Lima on Sunday that the two countries and
other ''relevant parties'' should continue efforts to promote the six-party
process, according to China's state-run Xinhua news agency.
==Kyodo