DAR AL HARB - NORTH KOREA / U.S.A.: THE TALKS BEGIN

US, North Korea start groundbreaking talks

NEW YORK - The United States and North Korea began groundbreaking talks Monday in a first step toward normalizing ties and cementing Pyongyang’s commitment to scrapping its nuclear arms program.

Less than three weeks after the reclusive Stalinist regime agreed to freeze its key nuclear facility, US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill met with his North Korean counterpart Kim Kye-gwan before hosting his visitor to dinner at New York’s grand Waldorf Astoria Hotel.
It was the highest level meeting held in the United States between the two nuclear rivals since October 2000.

Hill, who arrived in a yellow taxi in an apparent bid to avoid the attention of a battery of reporters and photographers, said the talks which would continue on Tuesday was aimed at setting the pace for bilateral relations, including possible removal of North Korea from a US list of state terrorism sponsors.

The meeting would “form an agenda to work on our bilateral relationship — what’s involved in the establishment of diplomatic relations, what’s involved before North Korea can get off the state-sponsor-of-terrorism list, and how to get them off the Trading with the Enemies Act,” Hill told the New York Times.

He also said he would be “pressing for disclosure” of all of North Korea’s nuclear programs.

Kim, often guarded with his comments, said he was optimistic about the talks.

“I think everything will go well,” he told South Korea’s news agency Yonhap.

Kim also reportedly told his South Korean counterpart Chun Yung-Woo in separate talks in New York that North Korea was willing to shut down its nuclear plants in an “irreversible” manner.

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