US envoy Hill heads for DPRK N-talks
Tuesday, 14 August 2007
BEIJING, Aug 13 (AFP): US nuclear envoy Christopher Hill headed to Beijing Monday as an important week got underway in international efforts to ensure North Korea scraps its atomic weapons programmes.
Hill was due to land in the Chinese capital early Monday afternoon ahead of meetings with his counterparts from North Korea and China to the long-running six-nation disarmament talks.
He and North Korean envoy Kim Kye-Gwan, who arrived here Saturday, will then take part in a two-day working group beginning Thursday in northeast China's Shenyang city.
It follows one of the most productive periods for years in the disarmament push, with North Korea last month closing its main nuclear reactor at Yongbyon and allowing UN atomic inspectors back into the country.
South and North Korea then announced they would hold only their second-ever leaders' summit, in Pyongyang from August 28- 30.
Hill was due to land in the Chinese capital early Monday afternoon ahead of meetings with his counterparts from North Korea and China to the long-running six-nation disarmament talks.
He and North Korean envoy Kim Kye-Gwan, who arrived here Saturday, will then take part in a two-day working group beginning Thursday in northeast China's Shenyang city.
It follows one of the most productive periods for years in the disarmament push, with North Korea last month closing its main nuclear reactor at Yongbyon and allowing UN atomic inspectors back into the country.
South and North Korea then announced they would hold only their second-ever leaders' summit, in Pyongyang from August 28- 30.