US chief nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill will visit China from today, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang in Beijing yesterday.

Hill, a US assistant secretary of state, will confer with Chinese officials on the six-party talks and other related issues, Qin told a regular press conference.

Hill on Monday began a visit to Pyongyang to negotiate the issue of nuclear declaration. During his stay there, Hill and his counterpart of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan, would discuss their responsibilities to fulfill the joint document of the six-party talks.

Hill said he would go to Yongbyon to see how the disablement is progressing.

According to a six-party talks joint document released in Beijing on Oct. 3, the DPRK agreed to disable all the existing nuclear facilities and provide a complete and correct declaration of all its nuclear programs by the end of this year.

The document said the disablement of the five-megawatt Experimental Reactor, the Reprocessing Plant (Radiochemical Laboratory) and the Nuclear Fuel Rod Fabrication Facility in Yongbyon would be completed by Dec. 31.