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Delegations arrive; six-party talks set to begin

BEIJING: With the arrival of U.S. and Japanese delegations on Sunday afternoon, all the five foreign delegations have converged in Beijing for the second phase of the fifth-round six-party talks.

Before the talks to be formally launched on Monday morning, the six delegations are expected to hold several bilateral consultations later on Sunday, making final preparations for the Monday's resumption. The U.S. and Japanese sides were scheduled to hold talks with China, the Republic of Korea (ROK) and Russia later on Sunday.

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) needs to get serious about the denuclearisation issue, said U.S. chief negotiator Christopher Hill upon his arrival.

``If they want to get out of the sanctions, they should denuclearise,'' Mr. Hill said.

Mr. Hill and his delegation came by the same plane with the Japanese delegation, which is headed by Kenichiro Sasae, director-general for Asian and Oceanian Affairs of the Japanese Foreign Ministry. Before arriving in Beijing, Mr. Hill and Mr. Sasae had talks in Tokyo and the two sides agreed that the fate of the upcoming talks depended on whether the DPRK takes concrete steps for denuclearisation.

``It is important that through this round of talks, the DPRK will make a concrete step towards denuclearisation,'' said Mr. Sasae.

``In order to reach this goal, Japan will do its best and take suitable policies to attend the talks,'' Mr. Sasae said.

The Russian delegation arrived in Beijing on Sunday morning and the delegations from DPRK and ROK arrived here on Saturday.

Launched in 2003, the talks have been held for five rounds. However, they have remained on hold since the DPRK walked out of the negotiations more than a year ago in response to U.S. sanctions. — Xinhua

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