Heads of delegations to the fourth-round of six-party talks concluded their meeting Saturday, agreeing to have discussions on a joint document which indicates the talks having entered a new stage.

Prior to this, the Chinese delegation held one-on-one talks with the delegations of the United States and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), respectively.

According to a source from the delegation of Republic of Korea (ROK), China has proposed a draft of the common document to other five parties, hoping agreement could be reached.

"We will have a lot of discussion about the text, and see if we can come to some agreement today," said Christopher Hill, head of the US delegation, on Saturday when he left his hotel.

"But I want to let you know it will take a while and can not be finished within a day," said Hill. "This is a very difficult negotiation."

In the past four days, the participant nations of the six-party talks further understand each other's positions and the drafting of the common document would help talks "enter into a new stage", said a Japanese official Friday evening.

It was also reported by the ROK media that the common document will reaffirm a 1992 inter-Korean pledge to make the peninsula nuclear-free.

Under the 1992 South-North denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, the ROK and the DPRK pledged not to test, produce, store, deploy or use nuclear weapons.

According to some foreign media prediction, the common document will also include addressing DPRK's security concern, the normalization of US-DPRK and Japan-DPRK diplomatic relations, economic cooperation and other issues of common concern.

Liu Jiangyong, a professor on the international relations with China's prestigious Tsinghua University, said in an interview with Xinhua that the discussion on the common document may last for days, or even a week.

The best the solution to the Korean nuclear issue is to reach a packaged resolution act, and the least is to continue the six-party talks framework, Liu said.

Liu also predicted that the final document could have "one version but two levels", explaining that the concerned parties would state their consensus and raise difference in the common document.

In addition, the expert also pointed out that the US and the DPRK still have different views on the definition on the "nuclear free", which needs the two sides to make compromise to reach agreement.

(Xinhua News Agency July 31, 2005)