The U.S. representative to talks on North Korea's nuclear ambitions predicted Sunday that this week's negotiations would not be the last, saying much work needs to be done since Pyongyang boycotted the talks more than a year ago, AP reported. The latest round of six-nation talks among North Korea, South Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia were set to begin Tuesday after North Korea ended its 13-month boycott after a U.S. reassurance to recognize its sovereignty. «I wouldn't expect this to be the last set of negotiations,» Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, the top American delegate, told reporters on arriving in Beijing. «The negotiations have been in suspension ... for over a year, so we have to see where we go with these. We would like to make some measurable progress.» He did not indicate what Washington considers that to be. «It's going to take a little time, it's going to take a lot of work, but we come here in a real spirit of trying to make some real progress,» he said. On Sunday, South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Song Min-soon and his North Korean counterpart, Kim Kye Gwan met for more than 90 minutes and «agreed on the need to make substantial progress,» according to a spokesman for the South's delegation. Bae Young-han, the director for press and public relations at the South Korean Foreign Ministry, said the two sides «agreed to come up with a framework to realize denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,» according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency. --SP 2304 Local Time 2004 GMT
