S. Korean negotiators in Beijing for talks on NK nuke

By Lee Chi-dong

BEIJING, Dec. 7 (Yonhap) - A team of South Korean negotiators arrived here on Sunday to attend a new round of six-way talks on the North Korean nuclear program to be held later this week.

"I am not optimistic at all," Kim Sook, who leads the delegation told reporters.
He met chief American nuclear envoy Christopher Hill in Seoul on Saturday night
to be debriefed on Hill's two days of inconclusive discussions with his North
Korean counterpart Kim Kye-gwan in Singapore.
"As far as I know, there was no explicit outcome or new compromise at the
Singapore meeting," Kim said, refusing to go into details.
Kim backed Washington's position that documenting ways to verify Pyongyang's
nuclear declaration will be a main task at the six-way talks to be resumed Monday
after a five-month hiatus. In June, the North provided self-claimed details of
its nuclear inventory to the U.S., South Korea, China, Japan, and Russia under a
six-party accord last year.
The U.S. says taking samples from the North's nuclear sites is mandatory to check
the accuracy of the declaration -- a base material in charting dismantlement of
its atomic weapons program. But Pyongyang is opposed to guarantee sampling in
writing.
Also to be discussed at what will probably be the last session under the Bush
administration are timetables to completing the slow-going disablement of the
North's main nuclear reactor in Yongbyon and the delivery of energy assistance as
a reward, according to the South Korean negotiator. About half of the promised 1
million tons of fuel oil and energy-related materials have been delivered so far.
"This round of six-way talks serves as an important bridge between the second and
the last stage," Kim said.
He said that the talks will likely finish on Wednesday but that they might be
protracted.
Kim is scheduled to hold a trilateral meeting with Hill and Japan's top envoy
Akitaka Saiki later Sunday to coordinate their strategy