Chun Yung Woo, who heads the delegation of the Republic of Korea (ROK), speaks to the media upon his arrival at Capital International Airport in Beijing yesterday, for the second phase of the fifth-round six-party talks. -Xinhua

A delegation of the Republic of Korea (ROK) headed by Chun Yung Woo arrived in the Chinese capital yesterday afternoon for the second phase of the fifth-round six-party talks.

The ROK delegation is the second that has arrived in Beijing for the multilateral talks set to resume on Monday. A delegation from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) arrived in Beijing on Saturday morning.

Chun, the top ROK negotiator since February 20 of this year, said at the Beijing International Airport that the six-party talks offered a very good opportunity for all the involved parties to move the process towards a good direction on the basis of the joint statement released on September 19 of 2005.

But whether the relevant parties could achieve this purpose depended on whether they had a common political will, Chun added.

Chun's counterpart from the DPRK, Kim Kye-gwan, had a pessimistic outlook on the upcoming talks. He said earlier in the morning that the DPRK was not optimistic about the outlook of the upcoming round of talks and that the United States should change its hostile policy towards the DPRK for a peaceful co-existence policy.

Aiming at resolving the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula, the upcoming six-party talks also involving China, the United States, Russia and Japan, will resume in Beijing on Dec. 18 after a 13-month stalemate.

The Russian, U.S. and Japanese delegations are scheduled to arrive in Beijing on Sunday.

Launched in 2003, the six-party talks have been held for five rounds. However, the talks have remained on hold since the DPRK walked out of the negotiations more than a year ago in response to U.S. sanctions.

Over the past 13 months, the parties concerned have been engaged in a flurry of diplomatic activities in order to resume the talks.

At the end of October, the heads of delegations to the six-party talks from China, the DPRK and the United States had an informal meeting in Beijing, at which they agreed to restart the six-party talks.