Officials discuss N Korea oil aid

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6934351.stm

Version 0 of 1.

Working-level officials from six nations are meeting to discuss technical details of a deal aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear programme.

The two-day talks are taking place in the truce village of Panmunjom, on the inter-Korean border.

The officials will discuss how and when promised energy aid will be sent to North Korea.

Pyongyang is to receive 950,000 tons of oil in exchange for declaring and disabling all its nuclear facilities.

The communist state has already shut down its main reactor and four other facilities at its Yongbyon nuclear complex.

But at talks in Beijing last month, negotiators from the other nations involved in the talks - the US, China, Russia, South Korea and Japan - were unable to commit North Korea to a timetable for implementing the deal's second phase.

Working-level officials will discuss technical details at a number of meetings before the chief negotiators reconvene, likely in September.

Storage capacity

"After many twists and turns, the six-party process has gained momentum again," South Korean envoy Chun Yung-woo said as the talks began.

Officials will focus on the details of getting the oil to North Korea.

Panmunjom lies in the Demilitarised Zone between the two Koreas

There are questions over whether the impoverished country's infrastructure could handle large shipments of oil.

An unidentified official told South Korea's Yonhap news agency that North Korea only had the storage capacity to accept 200,000 tons of oil per year.

A separate set of talks will focus on North Korea's obligations under the disarmament deal, Yonhap said.

It is the first time that talks under the auspices of the six-nations process have been held in Panmunjom, a village in the demilitarised zone (DMZ) that separates the two Koreas.

"This truce village symbolises a particular legacy of division of the Cold War which I believe should be remedied through the peace process to proceed in parallel with the denuclearisation process," Mr Chun said.

On Monday, soldiers from North and South Korea exchanged fire across the border, but there were no reports of injuries.