Under an agreement reached on February 13, Pyongyang must disable its atomic facilities and make a complete declaration of all its nuclear programs. In return, the impoverished communist state will receive a massive injection of fuel aid.
" We hope to agree on a roadmap that will take us through to the end of the year," top U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill told reporters after the opening session of the talks, which were expected to go through Sunday.
He said the six countries at the talks -- the United States, the two Koreas, Japan, Russia and host China -- aim to begin circulating a draft text on Friday that will set targets through the end of the year, including completing disablement and declaration of the North's nuclear programs.
North Korea shut down and sealed its Soviet-era Yongbyon nuclear plant and allowed U.N. atomic energy monitors back to the site in July, its first steps in seeing through the breakthrough February 13 deal.
In return, Pyongyang has received shiploads of heavy fuel oil and held bilateral talks with the United States that could bring the fortress state out of diplomatic isolation.
But the country must still move ahead to disable its nuclear arms programs before it receives 950,000 tonnes of heavy fuel -- crucial to the North Korea, which is so poor it cannot afford fuel to run its factories or even its traffic lights.
Hill said differences between the U.S. and North Korea, the key players in the stop-start negotiations, were not intractable.
Reuters