Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Envoys to Hold Talks on Aid to North Korea

Working-level talks this week between the Koreas, the United States and regional partners will seek to iron out the details of an aid-for-disarmament deal with North Korea, a top South Korean nuclear envoy said Monday.

The two-day talks - set to open Tuesday at the truce village of Panmunjom that separates the two Koreas - are a follow up on a February agreement under which Pyongyang agreed to abandon its nuclear program and allowed the return of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency in exchange for aid and diplomatic concessions.

The six parties including China, Russia and Japan will 'discuss on how to give energy aid to the North,' South Korea's top nuclear negotiator, Chun Yung-woo, told The Associated Press.

North Korea has received 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil provided by Seoul in return for the shutdown of its sole operating nuclear reactor last month. The energy-starved North is to eventually get further energy or other aid equivalent to 950,000 tons of heavy fuel oil in return for irreversibly disabling the reactor and declaring all nuclear programs.

[AP]

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