,
North Korea may take the first steps towards ending its nuclear weapons programme under a rare draft accord being hammered out on Friday by envoys to six-nation disarmament talks in Beijing.
Under the draft, circulated by host China after a successful first day of meetings, North Korea would freeze its main nuclear-related facilities within two months in return for alternative energy sources, press reports said.
Although envoys to the talks refused to confirm details, they said that it raised hopes Pyongyang could begin the process of disarming — less than four months after it conducted its first atomic weapons test.
US chief envoy Christopher Hill called the accord a “very tough first step” in convincing the isolated nation to give up its nuclear ambitions, following nearly four years of six-party negotiations that went nowhere.
“(Now) we need to get something done… we would like to pick up the pace,” Hill said before going into the second day of negotiations.
The draft is the first set of concrete proposals to be put forward in the six-party forum since a deal in September 2005 in which North Korea committed to disarming in return for security guarantees, energy benefits and aid.
That deal, hailed as a breakthrough then, fell apart just two months later due to North Korean objections over unrelated US financial sanctions imposed against it for alleged money laundering and counterfeiting.
Adding to the renewed sense of hope, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she was “cautiously optimistic” about the prospects for progress.
Rice said preparatory negotiations, including rare direct meetings between Hill and North Korean envoy Kim Kye-Gwan in Berlin last month, had paved the way for the September 2005 deal to be revived.
“I think we are cautiously optimistic there may be some movement forward,” she said in Washington.
However Hill on Friday also cautioned that the draft guarantee offered no guarantee of progress at the forum, which involves China, the two Koreas, the United States, Russia and Japan.
“There is a lot of work to do. Every time you get to a draft you have to look at every word, every comma, to make sure about things,” he said.
South Korea's Yonhap news agency, citing unidentified but multiple sources, reported that the draft accord involved North Korea committing to freeze its five-megawatt nuclear reactor at Yongbyon and a radiochemical laboratory.
It would also have to allow international nuclear inspectors back into the country, and in return would receive an unspecified amount of energy aid from the five other countries involved in the talks, Yonhap said.
South Korea's chief envoy, Chun Yung-Woo, said Friday that the draft accord contained concrete measures to begin implementing the 2005 agreement and that it formed a good basis for consultations between the six nations.
“But I do not want to recklessly predict at the moment whether it will be a smooth consultation process,” Chun said.
On arrival in Beijing on Thursday, North Korea's Kim had raised hopes of a breakthrough when he said he was prepared to talk about recommitting to the September 2005 agreement, but the onus rested on the United States.
“We are ready to discuss the initial steps, but whether the US will give up its hostile policy against us and come out for mutual, peaceful co-existence will be the basis for our judgement,” Kim told reporters.
“There are still lots of contentious points yet to be settled. It depends on how we settle those contentious points. We'll have to wait and see.”
