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BEIJING, CHINA - THE US envoy on North Korea nuclear disarmament said he held talks with his counterpart from the Stalinist state on Tuesday, but he emerged from the meeting with no reports of progress.
In his meeting with Kim Kye Gwan at the North Korean embassy, US envoy Christopher Hill said the pair had reviewed the stalled disarmament process and had a 'good exchange of views'.
Their meeting came ahead of an Asian trip by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice next week, during which the North Korean nuclear issue will be a top priority.
However, Mr Hill said there had been no major breakthrough in the key point that has stalled the process - a complete declaration by North Korea of the nuclear programmes it has spent decades developing.
'We had a discussion about what needs to be included in the declaration but we won't have a complete declaration until we have a complete declaration,' Mr Hill told reporters before flying to Seoul.
'We discussed ideas that China had made and how things could be moved into substantial discussions,' he added without elaborating.
Under a six-nation deal negotiated by the two Koreas, China, the United States, Russia and Japan last year, the North was supposed to disable its main atomic plants and list all its nuclear programmes by December 31.
North Korea has said it submitted a full list in November, but the United States insists it is still waiting for a complete declaration including a full account of a suspected covert uranium enrichment programme.
North Korea, which staged a nuclear test in October 2006 sparking international condemnation, has in response accused Washington of bad faith and warned it could slow down cooperation.
Mr Hill met earlier in the day with the Chinese assistant foreign minister, He Yafei, where he discussed a range of issues in the Asian region, Hill added.
After South Korea, Mr Hill will travel to Japan, although neither he nor Rice in her subsequent trip are slated to visit North Korea.
Dr Rice will leave Washington on February 23 for South Korea, China and Japan, for what a US State Department spokesman said was a trip aimed at breathing new life into the deadlocked talks.
Under the six-party deal, the North was due to receive up to one million tons of fuel oil or equivalent energy aid, but only around 200,000 tonnes has so far been shipped. -- AFP
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