Chief negotiators from the six parties had frequent shuttle contacts for in-depth discussions on the contents of the draft yesterday morning, striving to forge a joint document on the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue.??

A new draft, submitted late Sunday, "reflected all sides' modifications," said US chief negotiator Christopher Hill.

 

Deputy negotiators for the fourth round of six-party talks met Monday afternoon and?held working-level consultation on the second version of the draft, said a member of the Chinese delegation.

 

"Working-level consultations are also well underway," said the official, who declined to be named.

 

Little progress was made in consultations for the common document, according to Kenichiro Sasae, head of the Japanese delegation, who is also director-general of the Japanese Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau.

 

The six-party talks, which involve China, the US, Russia, Japan, South and North Korea, were initiated in 2003 to seek ways for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

 

A chief negotiators' group meeting would possibly be held according to the results of the deputies' consultation, said Song Min-soon, head of the South Korean delegation.

 

"There were no major differences, nor did the talks come to a standstill," said V. Yermolov, deputy head of the Russian delegation, who served as Russia's acting chief negotiator during Alexander Alexeyev's absence from Saturday.

 

A Russian official told reporters yesterday that the whole process of the talks did not avoid the toughest issue. All parties came to believe that to seek solution to the toughest issue is a shared wish for all.

 

US delegation head Christopher Hill said earlier yesterday that the consultations were "rather well" despite "difference on language."

 

According to a report of North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the North will rejoin the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and accept the IAEA inspection if the nuclear issue can be resolved satisfactorily.

 

"If the nuclear issue finds a satisfactory solution, we will return to the NPT and accept the IAEA inspection," North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam-sun said July 29 at the ministerial meeting of the 12th ASEAN Regional Forum held in Laos.

 

He also expressed the hope that the ongoing fourth round of six-party talks in Beijing will prove fruitful by having an in-depth discussion on the ways of denuclearizing the whole Korean Peninsula on the principle of respect for sovereignty and equality under any circumstances.

 

Wang Naicheng, a research fellow with the State Council's Development Research Center, said in an interview with Xinhua that a principled common ground is only the first step to resolve the Korean nuclear issue.

 

"The document could not be regarded as a roadmap," said the expert, predicting that the difference will center on the definition of the "nuclear free" and who, the US or North Korea, will make the first move.

 

The six-party talks are considered a diplomatic mechanism to seek ways to resolve the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue in a peaceful manner.

 

The previous three rounds of the talks were held since 2003, also hosted by China in Diaoyutai, but no substantial progress was made.

 

The resumption of the talks, after a 13-month-long impasse, has rekindled the hope for a breakthrough in the nuclear dismantlement deadlock.

 

(Xinhua News Agency August 2, 2005)