Delegates of the US and North Korea began their fourth one-on-one meeting this morning.  

One-on-one meetings between delegations would prevail on the fourth day of six-party talks in search of ways to resolve the Korean nuclear issue, diplomatic sources said Friday.

After their three-hour third meeting yesterday morning, which was longer than the previous two meetings, the US and North Korean delegations agreed "to continue consultations," the Chinese delegation's spokesperson Qin Gang said Thursday afternoon.

Qin also disclosed that the heads of the Japanese and North Korean delegations might meet at an appropriate time.

The ongoing fourth round of six-party talks was moving toward the right direction at a "good" atmosphere, said Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo at a meeting with heads of the six delegations yesterday.

"All the delegates have had frank, in-depth and pragmatic discussions on realizing a nuclear weapon-free Korean Peninsula and setting an overall goal for the six-party talks," Dai said.

An official with the South Korean delegation said Thursday afternoon that all delegations agreed to strive for substantive results, including a joint document, in the talks involving China, the US, Russia, Japan, South and North Korea.

While people were expecting the outcome of the negotiation, Russian delegation head Alexander Alexeyev told a press briefing yesterday he would leave Beijing for Moscow on Saturday.

Alexeyev, also Russian deputy foreign minister, said his deputy would remain in Beijing and he would come back "as soon as it's necessary."

The fourth round of six-party talks restarted Tuesday in Beijing after a 13-month-long impasse, and no deadline has been set for the talks as all sides had expressed their willingness for substantive results before the resumption of the negotiation.

(Xinhua News Agency July 29, 2005)