July 17, 2007 (LPAC) –Following the confirmation by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that North Korea's nuclear reactor has been shut down, US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill and North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan held a bilateral meeting today in Beijing ahead of renewed Six Party talks. Hill said today that the Six Party nations' foreign ministers will actually meet this year, to discuss the Korean peninsula nuclear issue, Interfax reported.

The Six Party talks – of North and South Korea, China, Russia, the United States and Japan – have been suspended since February, 2007, when an agreement was reached for North Korea to begin shutting down its nuclear capability, in exchange for significant fuel, food, and other economic aid from the Six nations. The policy is to end the tensions over North Korea's nuclear capability, be denuclearizing the the entire peninsula. North Korea is one of the targets of Dick Cheney's warmongers, and on Sunday, Lyndon LaRouche warned that the Cheney group will attempt to sabotage any progress in the peaceful resolution of the nuclear tensions.

The Hill-Kim talks were apparently friendly, over lunch and Hill later called the atmosphere "very businesslike." Hill said he would meet Kim again later today, before the formal talks open up tomorrow. North Korea's Yongbyon reactor was shut down July 15, immediately after South Korea delivered a promised shipment of fuel oil. The shutdown is only the first step towards totally disabling the North's nuclear programs, but there is "cautious optimism," as Russian special envoy Vladimir Rakhmanin said before he also arrived in Beijing today.

In Pyongyang, before he went to Bejing, Kim Kye Gwan announced that the "first phase has been accomplished," Xinhua reported. "So the talks will focus on the sequence of the obligations and actions to be taken by the concerned parties in the second phase."

Xinhua quoted South Korean ambassador Chun Yung-Woo saying in Beijing: "North Korea has taken an important step ... by shutting down Yongbyon. But the journey to denuclearization is just at the beginning. A very difficult road lies ahead. We need to assure North Korea that a bright world will be at the end of that road."

In Moscow, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said yesterday that Russia "will welcome any steps that could help make this objective a reality. We are ready to do everything possible to help achieve the goals set at the six-party talks, which, for instance, is confirmed by our contribution to the unfreezing of North Korea's accounts at the Delta Asia bank."

Rakhmanin said in an interview with Interfax that patience is essential. "A lot of work has yet to be done. The goal set in the joint statement of September 19, 2005, is the verifiable peaceful denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. A great deal will have to be done to achieve it…. Efforts are being taken in several areas, including the nuclear, economic and security ones. There are bilateral efforts and efforts taken in the six-nation format…. We should be flexible in the achievement of the main goal, the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula…. I think that these solutions wholly depend on our flexibility."