DPRK: Progress made at Geneva talks with U.S.

There has been progress after two days of direct talks between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the United States in Geneva, Pyongyang said Thursday. The two sides have deepened understanding of each other's standpoints in the talks, a foreign ministry spokesman told official news agency KCNA. The spokesman, however, did not disclose further details. To build up confidence, both sides decided to continue contacts and talks to discuss and solve pending issues, the spokesman said. He reaffirmed the DPRK's consistent stand on unconditional resumption of the six-party talks at an early date and its unchanged pursuit of comprehensive and balanced denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. The Geneva talks on Monday and Tuesday were the second round of such high-level dialogue between the two sides this year. The first round was held in late July in New York. The six-party talks, which involve the DPRK, South Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia, were launched in 2003, but got bogged down in December 2008. The DPRK pulled out of the talks in April 2009