pacific forum History of Pacific Forum

PacNet #61 – The Six-Party Talks: a sign of hope . . . or hopeless?

The second session of the fifth round of Six-Party Talks, held in Beijing on Dec. 18-22, ended much the same as the first session had some 13 months earlier, with a vague promise to implement the September 2005 denuclearization agreement "as soon as possible," but with absolutely no forward progress toward that goal. Like November 2005, the participants could not even agree on a date for the next session, promising only to "reconvene at the earliest possibility."