N.Korea to declare nuke activities within week

NKOREA: North Korea is likely to submit a declaration of its nuclear activities in less than a week, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said Friday.

The agency, quoting diplomatic sources, said the declaration was expected to be delivered around June 26 as part of a six-nation nuclear disarmament deal.

Seoul’s foreign ministry said it was checking the report.

Yonhap said the United States has agreed to start the process of dropping the North from a terrorism blacklist before or after the declaration is delivered.

It said the North’s nuclear envoy Kim Kye-Gwan is highly likely to submit the long-awaited declaration to his Chinese counterpart. But it could be presented through other diplomatic channels.

China hosts the six-nation talks which reached a landmark aid-for-denuclearisation deal in February 2007. The communist state has been working to make its Yongbyon nuclear plants unusable as part of the deal, and was also supposed to declare all its nuclear activities by last December.

Disputes over what activities the document should cover have delayed the convening of a new round of six-party talks.

The sources told Yonhap that the United States, South Korea and Japan hope to resume the talks in the first week of July after reviewing the declaration.

Seoul, Friday, AFP