US Envoy Hill To Dine With North Korean Diplomat

Under a 2005 six-party deal, North Korea agreed to abandon its nuclear programs in exchange for economic and diplomatic incentives.

Washington's top envoy to nuclear talks with North Korea, Chris Hill, will meet a North Korean diplomat on Thursday evening in New York, the U.S. State Department said.

Hill, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, will hold a working dinner with Ri Gun, the director general for North American affairs at North Korea's foreign ministry, State Department spokesman Robert Wood said.

Wood said he expected them to discuss the multilateral process under which Pyongyang has agreed to abandon its nuclear programs in exchange for fuel oil and other incentives.

Another senior U.S. envoy to the talks on denuclearizing North Korea will see Ri Gun on Friday at a meeting in New York arranged by a U.S. nongovernmental group. That meeting was announced last week by the U.S. side.

Under a 2005 six-party deal, North Korea agreed to abandon its nuclear programs in exchange for economic and diplomatic incentives. The agreement appeared in danger of collapse this year when North Korea began to reverse the disablement of its Soviet-era nuclear reactor at Yongbyon.

The United States took North Korea off its terrorism blacklist in October after the two countries agreed on a series of measures to verify Pyongyang's nuclear program and Pyongyang resumed disabling the reactor.

The verification steps still must be formally agreed by North Korea, South Korea, the United States, Russia, Japan and China -- the six nations that struck the 2005 deal.