North Korea nuclear talks eye on verification protocol

Beijing, Dec 8 (Xinhua) North Korea's nuclear disarmament talks scheduled here Monday is to produce a verification protocol, US chief envoy Christopher Hill said.

'We need to get a verification protocol. We need to have a clear roadmap of what we need to do to complete the verification,' Hill told reporters here.

The six-party talks between US, Japan, China, South Korea, Russia and North Korea will open here Monday after a five-month suspension.

Noting that the talks stood at 'a very important phase', Hill said: 'We've got a lot to do during this round. We look forward to getting the remaining disablement activities done.

'We need to figure out how to achieve this objective. It is an unanimous view that we need to proceed with this,' Hill said, after a trilateral meeting here with his counterparts from Japan, South Korea and Russia.

Hill is scheduled to meet his Chinese counterpart Monday morning, hours before the start of the talks that were first launched in 2003.

North Korea Saturday vowed to ignore Japan at the talks, citing Tokyo's refusal to send aid to the country as part of the disarmament agreement.

'I don't think it's for North Korea to be including or excluding anyone in the six-party talks. They need to deal with us all,' Hill said.