[imText1]On Thursday, the chair of six-party talks, China, circulated a draft of “work plan” among participating nations. <\/p>\n
The reason for China doing so before negotiation even resumes is last December\u2019s six-party meeting in Beijing and last month\u2019s NK-US bilateral talks in Berlin. Both sides realized each other\u2019s point and felt necessary to focus on fundamental issue for efficiency\u2019s sake. <\/p>\n
The “work plan,” or rough draft of agreement among the six states, would reportedly include stop operation and shutdown of North Korea\u2019s five nuclear facilities including that of Yongbyon reactor in two or three months while equivalent amount of energy provided by other states simultaneously. <\/p>\n
China\u2019s suggestion was welcomed by the other four countries, sources said. But North Korea\u2019s reaction is not known at this point. <\/p>\n
Head delegate from Pyongyang, Kim Kye Gwan expressed somewhat energetic attitude by saying \u201cWe are ready to discuss fulfillment of the first phase of plan in 9.19 Joint Declaration, in which Korean peninsula\u2019s denuclearization is elucidated.\u201d<\/p>\n
Also, amid both optimistic and pessimistic expectations, \u2018rewards\u2019 for North Korea\u2019s freezing of nuclear reactors and accepting international inspection get attention from the rest of the participating states. <\/p>\n
Chris Hill US Assistant Secretary of State said \u201cFuel aid is not the sole burden of US.\u201d Although not opposed to offer fuel to North Korea, Washington wants to share it among allies. Japan\u2019s Prime Minister Abe Shinzo expressed his desire to bring the abduction issue in the talks. Russia is reluctant to participate in fuel aid due to its already huge Soviet-era loan to the country. Thus, some South Koreans worry over the possibility of Seoul being forced to provide a huge amount of heavy oil to Pyongyang. <\/p>\n
Another controversial topic is how fast North Korea would “freeze” its nuclear reactors. The five other countries definitely demand NK to \u2018shut down\u2019 the reactors. Shutting down could mean denunciation of nukes in a few months, while \u2018freezing\u2019 indicate the period to be as long as 5 to 6 years, which is unacceptable by other countries. Hill mentioned about \u2018visible result\u2019 in three months. <\/p>\n
Moreover, there would be much more reward demand by North Korea as talks go by. It is likely to include abolition of sanctions, revocation of “terrorism-support state” status, resumption of light water reactor construction and other forms of economic assistance. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[imText1]On Thursday, the chair of six-party talks, China, circulated a draft of “work plan” among participating nations. The reason for China doing so before negotiation even resumes is last December\u2019s six-party meeting in Beijing and last month\u2019s NK-US bilateral talks in Berlin. Both sides realized each other\u2019s point and felt necessary to focus on fundamental […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":166,"featured_media":3489,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wikipediapreview_detectlinks":true,"footnotes":""},"categories":[644],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-analysis-and-opinion"],"yoast_head":"\n