An information official with the embassy of the Republic of Korea (ROK) in Beijing said Wednesday that the six-party talks on the Korean nuclear issue were proceeding smoothly.

Press official Han Jae-Heuk with the ROK embassy in China was quoting Shin Bong-Kil, spokesman for the ROK Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry. Shin Bong-Kil briefed the ROK journalists on the development of the morning talks.

The six-party talks began at 9:00 a.m., and Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi said he hoped the talks would progress well and live up to international expectations. Wang also gave the delegates a brief agenda of the event, saying the talks would conclude Friday morning.

Before making keynote speeches, representatives of the five delegations excluding China spoke briefly in alphabetic order. Beginning with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), they all expressed gratitude to China for hosting the talks, according to Shin.

The talks stopped for a 20-minute break at 10:10 a.m., and restarted at 10:30 a.m. This time, in reversed alphabetic order, the five delegations delivered keynote speeches one by one, with the United States first. They expressed their basic positions on the issue.

With interpretation time calculated in, the United States took one hour, Russia 20 minutes, the ROK 22 minutes, Japan 26 minutes and the DPRK 50 minutes. The talks halted again at 1:30 p.m.

Shin said the talks would restart at 3:00 p.m., when the Chinese delegation would deliver its keynote speech.

(Xinhua News Agency August 27, 2003)