Negotiators from six nations began a new round of talks aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear programme Thursday with a focus on agreeing to a "road map" for dismantling Pyongyang's declared nuclear facilities, according to dpa. Host nation China said the six teams from North Korea, the United States, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia met late Thursday afternoon at the start of a planned four-day session. "The core theme of this session is to make the Democratic People's Republic of Korea declare all its nuclear programmes and disable its nuclear facilities," China's official Xinhua news agency quoted South Korean negotiator Chun Yung Woo as saying before the talks. This week's discussions would be treading an "unbeaten path" and would be "difficult but also important," Chun said. Officials from the six nations were also expected to hold a series of bilateral sessions during the main six-party forum. North Korea and the United States were expected to discuss the disablement of North Korea's main nuclear facilities at the Yongbyon complex, about 100 kilometres north of Pyongyang. After more than three years of six-party negotiations, North Korea agreed in February to abandon its nuclear programme in return for fuel oil shipments and the eventual normalization of US-North Korean relations that have been on ice since the 1950-53 Korean War. But differences remain as to how the disablement should proceed, and officials said they hope a timetable for further progress would emerge this week.
