By Park Song-wu
Korea Times Correspondent


BEIJING _ Top envoys from the U.S. and North Korea on Thursday held their third face-to-face meeting here on the sidelines of the six-party nuclear talks amid rising speculation on a delayed drafting of a joint statement.

The two sides plan to hold more talks on Friday, hinting that they need more time to bridge differences over how to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula.

After the 160-minute talks, Christopher Hill, U.S. chief delegate, acknowledged that there were a number of differences. ``I just want to tell you this is not an easy process,’’ he said. ``It takes time. We’re working through this with five other parties.’’

Song Min-soon, South Korea’s top envoy, also told reporters that it will likely take time to narrow the gaps. ``If a bolt does not fit to a nut, we have to take time and modify the size,’’ he said.

Qing Gang, spokesman for the Chinese delegation to the six-party talks, said it is too early to tell if the Washington-Pyongyang talks were a breakthrough or a breakdown.

``It is normal for differences to exist among the various parties,’’ he said. ``The talks are moving forward in the right direction but the North Korean nuclear issue is complicated.’’

Hill expressed his hope of seeing an early drafting of a joint statement. ``We would like to see if we can get some six-party drafting in the next 24 hours,’’ he said.

However, he indicated that it will take more time by saying: ``When we start drafting, we want to make sure that the drafting becomes the easy part and that there is already a consensus on how to proceed.’’

The Seoul-Washington meeting was considered a crucial moment as it came a day after the two sides clarified their tough stances by delivering keynote speeches.

On Wednesday, North Korea implied that it could abandon all of its nuclear weapons programs only if the U.S. gives up its attempts to change the regime in Pyongyang and establishes diplomatic relations.

In return, the U.S. reportedly said that it could ``undertake to normalize relations’’ with North Korea if Pyongyang dismantles all existing nuclear weapons programs in an effective and verifiable manner.

Washington also raised the issue of North Korea’s human rights situation.

The two-way meeting continued until noon when China’s First Deputy Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo hosted a luncheon meeting for the six delegations.

A meeting of top six delegates from two Koreas, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan was reportedly set to be held in the morning. But it was delayed by one day with an effort to give Washington and Pyongyang enough time to narrow their differences.

The past three rounds of talks did not last more than four days. But South Korean officials had hinted before the beginning of the fourth round that it could last more than a month.

Since the beginning of the talks Tuesday, North Korea has shunned holding a one-on-one meeting with Japan.

im@koreatimes.co.kr