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Wednesday December 6, 12:24 PMHill likely to be named as policy coordinator for N. Korea: report(Kyodo) _ Christopher Hill, the top U.S. delegate to the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear programs, is likely to be named as policy coordinator for North Korea, Yonhap News Agency reported Wednesday in a dispatch from Washington.Hill, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, is expected to double as top nuclear negotiator and policy coordinator for North Korea, Yonhap quoted sources in Washington as saying. "His appointment is most likely. An announcement is expected sometime next week," it quoted one source as saying. The 2007 National Defense Authorization Act, signed into law in October, requires President George W. Bush to appoint a North Korea policy coordinator within 60 days, a deadline which expires on Dec. 17, Yonhap said. The coordinator is to conduct a full and complete interagency review of U.S. policy toward North Korea, including security and human rights issues, and provide a policy direction for negotiations with Pyongyang. The coordinator is required to submit a report on North Korean policy to the president and the Congress within 90 days of appointment. The United States, China and North Korea agreed in October to resume the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear programs, after North Korea said it had carried out a nuclear test on Oct. 9. The head nuclear negotiators for the three countries met in Beijing last week to lay the groundwork for the next six-way talks, but failed to set a date for the negotiations. The six-party talks that began in 2003 have been stalled for the past year over North Korean objections to U.S. financial sanctions. North Korea had refused to return to the talks, which also involve Japan, South Korea and Russia, saying the United States must first lift sanctions it had imposed on a Macao-based bank that allegedly engaged in money laundering and passing of counterfeit currency for North Korea. |
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