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News Stories - North Korea Nuclear Discussions

Washington's very public moves on North Korea have overshadowed this meeting of APEC leaders, with security, and not trade, very much at the top of the agenda.

South Korea's national security advisor, Dr Ra Jong-Yil, said he was not surprised that the issue of North Korea was dominating discussions and he was very encouraged by the latest American ideas on trying to end the crisis over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programme. He stressed that the Americans had given no detail of what he called the security assurances that could be offered to the north. No one, he said, was privy to the actual wording or the means of implementing any security guarantee.

Dr Ra said such details would have to be worked out by all six countries involved in efforts to resolve the nuclear crisis, including North Korea itself. He hoped such talks could take place by the end of the year. But for now, he said, positive progress was being made.

- vocabulary:

very public moves: approaches that can be easily seen by everyone
overshadowed: if something is overshadowed, attention and importance are taken away from it
APEC: Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
at the top of the agenda: something at the top of the agenda is the most important thing
dominating: if a topic is dominating, it gets more time and attention than any other

Pyongyang: here, the capital city is used to refer to the whole country of North Korea

security assurances: guarantees against possible attacks against North Korea
was privy to: if you are privy to something, you're one of the few people who know about it
the actual wording: the exact written words

positive progress: movement in the right direction