China issues text on start to NKorean nuclear disarmament(Is the war with N Korea over before it starts?)

[link to www.chinadaily.com.cn]


China issued a "final text" outlining how to begin abolishing North Korea's nuclear weapons program, the chief US envoy said following a marathon round of six-nation disarmament negotiations.

"The Chinese side distributed a final text which will be referred to the capitals of the delegations. We will have another meeting tomorrow and we will see if we can get it approved," Christopher Hill told reporters.

Hill described the text as "excellent" and said it outlined initial actions the parties involved in the talks could take to kickstart the process of North Korea ending its nuclear weapons drive.

He said it was based on a six-party deal in September 2005 that subsequently fell apart in which North Korea agreed to give up its nuclear weapons programme in return for security guarantees, energy benefits and other aid.

"It was a long day -- lot of effort by a lot of people," Hill said, referring to the negotiations that started at 10:00 am (0200 GMT) on Monday and did not finish until 16 hours later.

"I think we made a lot of progress."

The six-nation talks began in 2003 with the intent of convincing North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons programme, but failed to prevent the isolated communist nation from conducting its first atomic test in October last year.