North Agreed to Hold Another Six-way Talks in November

North Korea has agreed in principle to hold a second round of multilateral talks on its nuclear weapon development program in Beijing in early November, a Japanese news agency reported Thursday.

Quoting unidentified diplomatic sources in Moscow, Kyodo News said the North gave notified Russia and other regional players involved in the first round of nuclear talks. The other four countries were South Korea, the United States, China and Japan. At the end of the negotiations, the participants agreed to meet again, but failed to determine the exact date or venue.

In a related news, the Nekkei Simbun newspaper reported Wednesday that high ranking officials from the US, Japan, and South Korea are expected to meet in Beijing at the end of this month to discuss follow-up talks to their first round meeting.

The Japanese daily said that the decision came after North Korea didn`t make any provocative action on its 55th anniversary of founding its regime on Sept 6 to show off its military capability by declaring itself a nuclear state or by displaying new missiles.

Hun-Joo Cho hanscho@donga.com