Beijing: "The six-party talks on peacefully dismantling North Korea's nuclear programme will reopen in Beijing very soon, US chief negotiator to the talks," said Christopher Hill here today (Jan 22,2007).

He said there is a basis for making progress in the six-party talks.

Hill made the remarks before heading for Washington, where he will brief the Bush administration on the talks he had in Berlin with his North Korean counterpart Kim Kye Gwan as well as Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei here yesterday.

Prior to his arrival in the Chinese capital, Hill visited Seoul and Tokyo, where he exchanged views with his counterparts there on the early resumption of the six-way talks that involves North Korea, the United States, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia.

Hill told officials in Tokyo that the United States and North Korea agreed to restart talks as soon as possible and strive for concrete progress.

The United States and North Korea held rare one-on-one talks in Berlin from Tuesday to Thursday last week. Hill described in Seoul his meeting with Kim in Berlin as "very useful."

The six-party talks hosted by China was first held in 2003. At the latest round of talks held in late December in Beijing, held after a hiatus of over one year, Washington and Pyongyang failed to make major progress on the issue of US economic sanctions on the Stalinist state.

However, North Korea stuck to its stand that the US must revoke the sanctions if nuclear disarmament talks have to move ahead.