South Korea: Countries agree to speed up NKorea energy aid for nuclear disarmament

South Korea, the U.S. and three regional partners have agreed to speed up their delivery of energy aid to North Korea in exchange for its nuclear disarmament, a South Korean official said Wednesday.

The five countries _ also including China, Japan and Russia _ reached the agreement Tuesday ahead of broader talks involving North Korea at the Korean border village of Panmunjom that began Wednesday, South Korean negotiator Hwang Joon-kook said.

Hwang said the five countries also agreed that North Korea must accelerate its stalled work to disable its nuclear facilities in return for the energy aid.

"In the past months, the six-party talks seemed stalled in appearance," Hwang said in opening remarks at Wednesday's meeting. "But I must say, intensive discussions and negotiations among the six parties continued."

Under last year's six-nation deal, North Korea agreed to disable its nuclear facilities in exchange for political concessions and the equivalent of 1 million tons of oil.

North Korea began disabling its main plutonium-producing facilities in November, but the process stalled because of a dispute over whether it kept a pledge to declare all its nuclear programs.

The five donor countries have so far sent North Korea only 384,000 tons of oil and other energy-related equipment, according to the South Korean Foreign Ministry. North Korea has frequently complained of delayed shipments.

North Korea says it has completed 80 percent of the disablement but has only received about 40 percent of the promised aid.

However, Hwang said after the opening session of the talks that the other countries dispute North Korea's claim of being nearly finished with disablement "considering the fact that more important phases are yet to be completed."

Last month, North Korea gave the U.S. technical logs from its Yongbyon nuclear complex, raising hopes for a breakthrough in the nuclear deadlock.

If the documents are verified and North Korea submits its promised nuclear declaration, the U.S. is expected to remove the North from its terrorism and trade sanctions blacklists _ a coveted goal of the North Korean government.

The U.S. State Department's top Korea specialist, Sung Kim, returned to Seoul on Wednesday after a two-day trip to North Korea for talks on the nuclear issue.

"We had detailed and substantive discussions on the issue related to the disablement," Kim told reporters of his meetings in the North, adding that more discussions will be held in coming weeks.

Kim was expected to meet South Korean officials before returning Thursday to Washington, according to the U.S. Embassy in Seoul.