Six-party talks to resume

WASHINGTON – Six-nation talks on ending North Korea’s nuclear program will begin Dec. 16 in Beijing, two months after Pyongyang defied international pressure and conducted its first nuclear test. The talks have been stalled for more than a year.

“We’re going back,” Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said in an interview. Hill, the chief U.S. negotiator, said China, the host of the talks, will make a formal announcement this weekend. The first session is expected to last a few days, then break before Christmas.

The talks have been stalled in part because of North Korean pique at a U.S. Treasury Department effort to crack down on North Korean counterfeiting. The United States has agreed to set up a working group at the talks to find ways to finalize a Treasury investigation of a Macau bank, provided North Korea takes steps to end its illicit activities.

U.S. officials said all sides have agreed that the talks will seek to implement the joint “statement of principles” issued on Sept. 19, 2005, which was designed to lay out a negotiating road map. That statement, which said North Korea would “abandon” its nuclear programs, is filled with diplomatic ambiguity, with no clear timeline for when North Korea would give up its programs, or how, or in what sequence.