North Korea will have to ”demonstrate in concrete terms” a commitment to denuclearisation when six party talks on ending its nuclear programme resumes next month, Japan’s foreign ministry spokesperson said on Wednesday.
Envoys to the six-party talks from Japan, the United States and South Korea will recommend that host Beijing reconvene the talks in the first half of December, Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mitsuo Sakaba said.
Briefing reporters after the envoys from the three countries met in Hanoi, Sakaba said they also agreed they would not accept North Korea as a nuclear power at those meetings.
North Korea declared after it exploded a nuclear device on October 9 that it should be recognised as a nuclear power.
Pyongyang pulled out of the six-party talks a year ago, protesting a US financial crackdown over its alleged illicit activities.
But it agreed in late October to return to the negotiating table on the premise the US measures would be discussed.
The three envoys reaffirmed that separate United Nations sanctions, imposed after the North’s nuclear test, would remain.
US envoy Christopher Hill said earlier on Wednesday on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific summit in Vietnam that the six-party negotiations that also involve Russia and China would resume in early December.
”I think we will try to use the next few weeks to be very busy and maybe begin the talks sometime in early December, probably,” Hill said. – Reuters