The US is to put forward new suggestions about the draft of common document at the six-party talks on the nuclear issue of the Korean Peninsula, US chief negotiator Christopher Hill said in Beijing Saturday night.

 

Hill told reporters when returning to hotel that the US and several other delegations to the talks have difficulties to reach a common document during Saturday's discussion.

 

"But we are trying to work with it, and we are really trying to reach something with it," Hill said.

 

"We are going to try to come up with some other ideas in the coming few hours," Hill said, adding that he had made a lot of calls back to Washington Saturday.

 

On the current draft of common document proposed by China to the other delegations on Friday, Hill said there are still some problems with the text.

 

"We are setting principles, but being in general principles doesn't mean you create ambiguities and lead the way to confusion and lead the way to problems in the future," Hill said.

 

"We stress clarity with these principles," Hi said and adding "What we do now needs to help what we do in the future and not cause more confusion in what we do in the future."

 

But he didn't elaborate the principles and difficulties.

 

"I can't be more specific, and I'd love to be more specific," Hill said, "but I don't want to be specific in a way that will make it more difficult for me to work in the next 24 hours."

 

"How these all turn out, we don't know yet," Hill said.

 

The fourth round of the six-party talks, which involves China, North Korea, the US, South Korea, Russia and Japan, resumed on Tuesday after a five-week recess.

 

Hill said China, the host country, is trying very hard to bridge the differences among the concerned parties.

 

"We have to give the Chinese a lot of credits," Hill said.

 

"Our hope was that tomorrow would be the last day. We'd like to catch a flight back to the US," Hill said, "but we don't know if that's going to be possible but certainly we are really trying to wrap this up as soon as possible."

 

"Because we really want to get on with the next phase of getting very specific and going into the questions like verification which are central to this agreement," he said.

 

The six parties' efforts to reach a set of general principles in the form of a common document was stalled due to unsolved disputes between North Korea and the US.

 

(Xinhua News Agency September 18, 2005)