Korea nuke talks focus on verification

Six-nation talks on disarming North Korea's nuclear program moved closer Saturday to an agreement on ways to verify the communist nation's declaration of its nuclear materials.

Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi met with the negotiators, lauding their progress in three days of talks.

"Thanks to the joint efforts of all parties concerned, we have made important and initial success, which has captured the attention of the world in the six-party talks process," he said at the start of their meeting at the state guesthouse.

The progress shows that the talks "are an effective platform for solving the Korean nuclear issue" and achieving regional stability, Yang said.

The upbeat assessment follows comments by Yang's spokesman who said the six countries had agreed in principle on verifying the declaration the North presented last month but that details needed to be worked out.

U.S. envoy Christopher Hill said measures would include site visits, close examination of North Korean records and interviews with its officials.

Agreement at the talks - which also include Japan, Russia and South Korea - would signal the start of the final phase of the tortuous, yearslong negotiations to get North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program.

If concluded, verification could take weeks or even months, and the Bush administration is believed to be keen to see North Korea disarmed before President Bush leaves office in January.

But questions remain about whether North Korea's declaration, which has not been made public, fully accounted for all its nuclear programs and materials. Pyongyang, which conducted a nuclear test in 2006, is believed by experts to have produced enough weapons-grade plutonium to make as many as 10 nuclear bombs.

A working group of lower level officials continued meeting Saturday to hammer out the specifics of verification, Hill told reporters.

"We're not asking for anything unusual. We're asking for things that are done all over the world. We want a basically standard kind of package on how you verify this type of nuclear program," he said.

Talks between chief negotiators were originally scheduled to end later Saturday, though working group discussions could run longer.

Energy-starved North Korea was promised fuel aid equivalent to 1 million tons of oil under a February 2007 disarmament deal. Japan has opted out of contributing, citing a lack of progress by North Korea in resolving the issue of its abductions of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and '80s. North Korea has complained that countries involved in the talks have supplied only 40 percent of promised energy shipments.

"Japan and North Korea have some problems in their relations," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporters Friday night.

Kim Sook, Seoul's nuclear envoy, told reporters the six parties had "extensive discussions" and that some common ground had been reached on verification, monitoring and energy aid to North Korea.

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Associated Press correspondent Kwang-Tae Kim contributed to this report.