Rice hints at movement on North Korea nuclear issue

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday hinted at progress toward ending North Korea's nuclear ambitions and left a senior aide in Beijing to discuss the matter with Chinese officials. North Korea committed to abandon all nuclear weapons and programmes in exchange for economic and diplomatic benefits under a 2005 multilateral deal.
But the accord between the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States has become bogged down by Pyongyang's failure to produce a declaration of its nuclear programmes by the end of last year.
Speaking in Tokyo, her last stop on a four-day tour of Northeast Asia largely focused on North Korea, Rice said she good conversations on North Korea with Japanese and Chinese officials. Several meetings ran longer than scheduled.
"We've had constructive discussions yesterday ... we have had constructive discussions here today and those will add to our ability to perhaps build some momentum toward the completion of the second phase," Rice told reporters after she met Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura, Earlier Rice told reporters that her talks with Chinese President Hu Jintao were "constructive and I would like to have continued them myself" but had to fly to Japan, leaving Chris Hill, the top US negotiator with North Korea, to follow up.
Hill scrapped plans to accompany Rice to Tokyo and will spend one extra day in Beijing. He leaves on Thursday morning and is expected to make scheduled visits to Bangkok, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. The State Department said he had no plans to meet North Korean officials in Beijing or to visit Pyongyang.
Rice was vague about how she hoped to revive the effort to denuclearise North Korea, which has shut down and begun to disable its atomic reactor at Yongbyon but balked at providing a declaration of all its nuclear programmes.
Under the second phase of the denuclearisation agreement, North Korea was to disable key facilities in Yongbyon and produce the declaration in exchange for 1 million tonnes of heavy fuel oil and the termination of certain US sanctions.
Under the third, and final phase, the United States expects North Korea to dismantle the Yongbyon reactor, account for the fissile material it has accumulated and decide what to do with it.