Sitting in the garden, Christopher Hill, right, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs and Head of the U.S. Delegation to the Six-Party Talks, speaks with North Korean chief negotiator Kim Gye Gwan, back towards camera, during the bilateral meeting of USA and North Korea, at the mission of North Korea in Geneva, Switzerland, Sunday, Sept. 2, 2007. The talks held in Geneva, led by U.S. chief negotiator Christopher Hill and North Korea’s negotiator Kim Gye Gwan, are about the normalization of the relations between the U.S. and North Korea and about the North Korean nuclear program.
North Korea agreed Sunday to declare and disable all its nuclear facilities by the end of the year, the chief U.S. negotiator said — the first time the communist country has offered a timeline to end its secretive atomic program.
The North Korean envoy, in separate comments, told reporters his country was willing “to declare and dismantle” its nuclear program, but mentioned no dates.
Before announcing the timetable, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said improving relations between the two countries, long estranged, was dependent on a North Korea free of nuclear weapons.
It “is a relationship that we will continue to try to build step by step with the understanding that we’re not going to have a normalized relationship until we have a denuclearized North Korea.”
Hours later, he said he and his North Korean counterpart had agreed that North Korea “will provide a full declaration of all of their nuclear programs and will disable their nuclear programs by the end of this year, 2007.”
Is this a Bush foreign policy success?
Trust but verify. But, certainly this diplomatic progress is preferable to Kim Jong-Il shooting missiles at Hawaii.
Stay tuned……
Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill holds a press conference in Geneva. Hill has said that North Korea has agreed to make a full declaration of all its nuclear programmes and to disable them by the end of the year.
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North Korea Watch: IAEA Inspectors Reach Nuclear Agreement
North Korea Watch: US-NK Set Timetable to Shut Down Yongbyon Reactor
North Korea Watch: Hill Visits North Korea to Accelerate Six Party Nuclear Talks
North Korea Watch: Hill - North Korea to Disable ALL Nuclear Facilities by the End of 2007
North Korea Watch: North Korea’s Invite to the IAEA Welcome as Good News
North Korea Watch: North Korea Continues to Develop Nuclear Weapons
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North Korea Watch: North Korea Tentatively Agrees to Nuclear Disarmament
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