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Efforts on to resume talks with N. Korea

By P. S. Suryanarayana

SINGAPORE Nov. 26. Efforts to resume the six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear weapons `programme' intensified today, although Pyongyang's latest disposition remained unclear in the specific context of the latest decision by an international consortium to suspend work on a light-water reactor project for one year with effect from December 1.

The Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organisation (KEDO), consisting of the U.S. as also South Korea and Japan besides the European Union, decided to suspend the sluggish work on the electricity project in North Korea, despite the current moves for a renewed round of multi-party talks and the indications by the U.S. about its willingness to offer Pyongyang some "security assurances'' so as to wean it from its present `programme' of making and deploying weapons of mass destruction, in particular nuclear arms.

The South Korean Defence Minister, Cho Yong-kil, and the Chief of the Japanese Defence Agency, Shigeru Ishiba, held talks in Tokyo today, discussing, among other subjects like their possible troop despatches to Iraq, the latest prospects of holding another round of the six-party talks.

Held in Beijing for the first time last August, these talks were attended by the U.S., the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, South Korea, Japan and Russia besides China as the host.

The talks in Tokyo today should be seen in the context of the recent visit to East Asia by the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, James Kelly, to discuss the prospects of six-party talks, and the continuing efforts by China to convene the next round.

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