(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-04-23 08:19

WASHINGTON -- A team of US nuclear experts had talks on Tuesday with officials of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) over the issues concerning how to verify the declaration of its nuclear programs that Pyongyang was due to deliver by December 31 of 2007.

"They (US experts) did, as I understand it, have a chance to meet with Kim Gye Gwan today and they'll be continuing their discussions over the next day or so," State Department spokesman Tom Casey told reporters.

"Their focus ... is to work on the declaration," the spokesman said.

Kim Gye Gwan, vice minister of the DPRK, has been leading the DPRK delegation to the six-party talks launched in 2003 among the United States, the DPRK, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear weapons drive.

The United States hoped the latest meeting with the DPRK officials "will make progress toward getting the declaration," said Casey. But "this really is an issue where it's not done until everything is done," he added.

The US expert team, led by Sung Kim, director of the Korean desk of the US State Department, arrived in Pyongyang Tuesday to discuss the DPRK's promised declaration of its nuclear programs. The US team is scheduled to leave on Thursday.

The DPRK's failure to disclose an inventory of its nuclear activities has bogged down a 2005 multilateral deal, under which Pyongyang was committed to abandoning all nuclear weapons and programs in return for diplomatic and economic incentives.

Christopher Hill, US top negotiator with the DPRK, had met with his DPRK counterpart Kim Kye Gwan in Singapore on April 8, saying they had made progress toward resuming stalled negotiations over the Pyongyang's nuclear program.

On April 9, the DPRK Foreign Ministry said that Pyongyang and Washington had reached an agreement on the nuclear declaration.

Under a six-party agreement released last October, once the DPRK has produced its nuclear declaration, the United States is expected to remove the sanctions on Pyongyang stemming from its inclusion on the US state sponsors of terrorism list and under the Trading with the Enemy Act.