- Title: SWITZERLAND: NEW ROUND OF KOREAN PEACE TALKS BEGIN IN GENEVA.
- Date: 19th January 1999
- Summary: GENEVA, SWITZERLAND (JANUARY 19, 1999) (REUTERS) 1. LAS/GV: EXTERIOR MEETING VENUE (2 SHOTS) 0.07 2. GV: MEDIA AWAITING ARRIVALS 0.10 3. GV: DELEGATES ARRIVING 0.17 4. SMV: HEAD OF CHINESE DELEGATION QIAN YONGNIAN SPEAKING TO MEDIA 0.20 5. SCU: (SOUNDBITE)(English) QIAN YONGNIAN SAYING: "We also hope formal announcement will be m
- Embargoed: 3rd February 1999 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
- Country: Switzerland
- Reuters ID: LVAE7ZWMP8MF93IS5Z44Q2RZ5ZX4
- Story Text: Delegations from the United States, China and North and
South Korea have begun a fresh round of talks on a Korean
peace treaty, but diplomats see little sign of a breakthrough.
The four-power negotiations which began on Tuesday,
(January 19) are the latest round in a series of discussions
that have been held on and off in Geneva for more than a year.
They are aimed at replacing the now fraying truce that
halted the 1950-53 war on the peninsula with a permanent
accord to normalise North-South relations.
Although the South under new President Kim Dae-jung has
proclaimed a "sunshine" policy towards Pyongyang, the North
recently stepped up propaganda attacks on Seoul and Washington
as well as Tokyo.
Diplomats say the belligerence shown by the communist
state, which says "imperialist" powers are working to destroy
it, could make progress hard to achieve at the four-party
talks, to be chaired this time by the North Koreans.
The talks, are focused on a site near a North Korean
nuclear reactor that has been moth-balled under a 1994 pact
between the two countries.
Under that deal the secretive communist state, currently
suffering serious economic disruption, agreed to freeze a
reactor programme with potential nuclear weapon spin-off in
return for foreign help in energy generation.
The United States pledged delivery of 500,000 tonnes of
heavy oil annually to North Korea, and a U.S.-led
international consortium was set up to finance construction of
reactors using a "clean" technology.
United States, however, has insisted on multiple access to
the site at Kumchang-ri, near the frozen Yongbyon reactor.
But Pyongyang, denying the new construction has any
nuclear potential, has demanded the United States pay $300
million if its inspectors visit the site and find nothing
violating the 1994 accord.
These discussions are due to last four days, and diplomats
say they are unlikely to produce any breakthrough.But there
is growing pressure for a resolution of the Kumchang-ri row.
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