Rice To Meet North Korean Counterpart On Nuke Issue

Singapore (AHN) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will meet with her North Korean counterpart in Singapore to iron out details of Pyongyang's nuclear program. However, the U.S. said the meeting between Rice and Pak Ui-chun has little significance and will only be an informal exchange of views.

Rice will also be meeting with ministers involved in six-nation talks in the North Korean disarmament.

The meeting comes weeks after Pyongyang handed over details of its nuclear program to China and presented to the six-nation talks and agreed to proposals to verify contents of the documents.

Also, envoys from China, the US, Russia, Japan and the two Koreas reached an agreement to destroy Pyongyang main nuclear facility by October. For their part, the other nations, including the U.S., would step up deliveries of fuel and economic aid promised during the talks.

The Chinese described the meeting between Rice and Pak as "very significant" but the she refused to call it as "historic."

She said ahead of the dialog, "I wouldn't call it either historic, monumental or even consequential. I think it's really in the consultation category."

However, Rice said she will give Pak "a very strong message" that the nuclear decommissioning "really needs to be completed, and that it has to be a verification protocol that can give us confidence."