Negotiators tried to work out a joint statement on eliminating North Korea's nuclear weapons program during a sixth day of talks yesterday, but differences remained over demands by the communist state for what it would get in return.
Deputy leaders of delegations from six governments met for five hours at a Chinese government guesthouse to examine a China-proposed draft statement, a South Korean official said on condition of anonymity due to the ongoing talks.
Discussions yesterday focused on "what corresponding measures other parties will take" in return for the North's agreement to dismantle its nuclear weapons program, South Korea's chief envoy said.
"It was a place where we could listen to each party's opinions on the draft," said Deputy Foreign Minister Song Min-soon.
"We are trying to come up with an agreed statement which contains all the key points that have been discussed so far, but how long it will take remains to be seen," he said. Song said more meetings were planned today.
The chief US envoy, Christopher Hill, has praised the Chinese proposal as a "good basis" for future negotiations but cautioned that differences remained with North Korea on a resolution of the 2 1/2-year-old nuclear standoff.
Hill, an assistant US secretary of state, has met five times with the North Koreans during the talks and it wasn't known if he met with them again yesterday.
No end date for the talks has been set, and Hill said "it's going to take a while" -- noting the process requires translating texts into the five languages of the nations at the talks: Chinese, English, Japanese, Korean and Russian.
"I want to caution everyone that it's a lot of work to look at a document and go line by line by line," Hill said yesterday afternoon at his Beijing hotel. "Things are moving, we have to see how it goes."
The draft calls for the abandonment of North Korea's nuclear weapons programs and nuclear programs that could potentially produce such arms, Kyodo News agency reported yesterday, citing an anonymous source at the talks. The draft also calls for normalization of US and Japanese relations with the North.
The Japanese side is dissatisfied with the draft because it fails to include a mention of its citizens the North has admitted abducting, Kyodo said.
A Chinese freighter that allegedly snapped an undersea cable linking Taiwan proper to Penghu County is suspected of being owned by a Chinese state-run company and had docked at the ports of Kaohsiung and Keelung for three months using different names. On Tuesday last week, the Togo-flagged freighter Hong Tai 58 (宏泰58號) and its Chinese crew were detained after the Taipei-Penghu No. 3 submarine cable was severed. When the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) first attempted to detain the ship on grounds of possible sabotage, its crew said the ship’s name was Hong Tai 168, although the Automatic Identification System (AIS)
An Akizuki-class destroyer last month made the first-ever solo transit of a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ship through the Taiwan Strait, Japanese government officials with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. The JS Akizuki carried out a north-to-south transit through the Taiwan Strait on Feb. 5 as it sailed to the South China Sea to participate in a joint exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces that day. The Japanese destroyer JS Sazanami in September last year made the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s first-ever transit through the Taiwan Strait, but it was joined by vessels from New Zealand and Australia,
CHANGE OF MIND: The Chinese crew at first showed a willingness to cooperate, but later regretted that when the ship arrived at the port and refused to enter Togolese Republic-registered Chinese freighter Hong Tai (宏泰號) and its crew have been detained on suspicion of deliberately damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan proper and Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement yesterday. The case would be subject to a “national security-level investigation” by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, it added. The administration said that it had been monitoring the ship since 7:10pm on Saturday when it appeared to be loitering in waters about 6 nautical miles (11km) northwest of Tainan’s Chiang Chun Fishing Port, adding that the ship’s location was about 0.5 nautical miles north of the No.
SECURITY: The purpose for giving Hong Kong and Macau residents more lenient paths to permanent residency no longer applies due to China’s policies, a source said The government is considering removing an optional path to citizenship for residents from Hong Kong and Macau, and lengthening the terms for permanent residence eligibility, a source said yesterday. In a bid to prevent the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from infiltrating Taiwan through immigration from Hong Kong and Macau, the government could amend immigration laws for residents of the territories who currently receive preferential treatment, an official familiar with the matter speaking on condition of anonymity said. The move was part of “national security-related legislative reform,” they added. Under the amendments, arrivals from the Chinese territories would have to reside in Taiwan for
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