UN chief Ban Ki-moon welcomes signs that six-nation talks on Pyongyang's nuclear program are set to resume soon, and he is encouraged by recent positive talks between US and North Korean negotiators, his spokeswoman said Friday.
"The secretary general welcomes reports of active preparations for the next round of the six-party talks on denuclearization of the Korean peninsula," spokeswoman Michele Montas said.
"He is encouraged in particular by the recent positive discussions between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and United States negotiators," she said in a statement.
US negotiator Christopher Hill, who has just had three days of talks in Berlin with his Pyongyang counterpart Kim Kye-Gwan, said Friday that North Korea and the United States had agreed to resume the six-nation process soon and would meet separately to discuss US financial sanctions on the Stalinist state.
Montas said Ban urged all those involved in the six-party process — the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia — "to redouble their efforts" toward implementation of a 2005 blueprint to get North Korea to scrap its nuclear program in exchange for economic and energy benefits as well as security guarantees.
Speaking in Seoul at the start of a regional tour, Hill said he expected nuclear discussions to restart before the Lunar New Year holiday, which begins on February 17 in Korea, with US-North Korean financial talks taking place as early as next week.
Source: Agence France-Presse
