A senior US official said in Washington yesterday that last week talks between officials of the US and North Korea have laid "solid basis" for progress at next six-party talks.

 

The three-day meeting was "a good round of consultations," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said at a regular news briefing.

 

"That certainly is positive," McCormack said, adding the US is expecting to realize some of that concrete progress in the next round of six-party nuclear disarmament talk.

 

The spokesman declined to predict when the next round of six-party talks would begin.

 

US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill and Kim Kye-gwan, top nuclear negotiator from North Korea, met in Berlin, Germany over the resumption of the six-party talks from January 16 to 18. Hill described the talks as useful and productive.

 

The six-party talks involve China, the US, Japan, Russia, North and South Korea.

 

During the fifth round of the talks in September 2005, North Korea signed a statement agreeing to give up its nuclear weapons program in exchange for economic aid and security guarantees from the US and other countries. However, North Korea refused to return to the talks as a result of US financial sanctions.

 

North Korea returned to the talks held in Beijing in December 2006, which failed to make progress.

 

(Xinhua News Agency January 23, 2007)