Top US nuclear talks negotiator Christopher Hill on Friday called for verification of the nuclear declaration of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).
"We all agree on what the DPRK needs to do," Hill, assistant Secretary of State, told reporters after meeting with his counterparts from the Republic of Korea (ROK) and Japan in Beijing on Friday night "to review the situation where we are".
"We need a means to verify the declaration," Hill said, noting that "what we need to do is to verify their nuclear declaration, and we have put together a protocol based on international standards."
Part of the nuclear declaration of the DPRK "is to have verification protocol". "We are prepared to complete our obligations as they complete theirs, but a declaration without a protocol is only half of the obligation," Hill noted.
Hill is expected to meet with his Chinese counterpart Wu Dawei Saturday morning.
The DPRK handed over the long-awaited nuclear declaration list in late June and then blew up a cooling tower in its main nuclear reactor at Yongbyon. On August 26, the DPRK said it had stopped disabling its nuclear facilities and considered restoring the Yongbyon nuclear reactor, attributing its move to the US failure to remove it from a terrorism blacklist.
(Xinhua News Agency September 6, 2008)
