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U.S. sees positive results, talks continue Saturday
Six-party talks over North Korea's nuclear program showed conflicting signs Friday after Washington said results were positive but the North accused its old foe of blocking progress with "a hostile policy."
A third full session of talks lasted little more than an hour and a half Friday morning, with North Korea's proposal to freeze its nuclear weapons program on the table and a South Korean, Chinese and Russian-backed plan to offer energy aid in exchange.
Deputy negotiators would continue talking in the afternoon, a Japanese official said.
Participants had described the talks so far as substantive and the atmosphere as positive. But Thursday night the North returned to familiar rhetorical territory and accused the United States of having a "hostile policy" -- the North's justification for a nuclear weapons program in the first place.
Diplomatic sources said North Korea also clung to denials it had a uranium enrichment program for weapons, the crux of its current disagreement with the United States.
Yet Secretary of State Colin Powell gave an upbeat assessment of talks that also involve South Korea, China, Japan and Russia.
"The results of the first two days of meetings are positive," Powell told the Senate Budget Committee in Washington. "There's a promising attitude that is emerging from those meetings and hopefully we can move in the right direction there."
LIBYA MODEL
The United States also lifted a travel ban on Libya overnight, allowing U.S. companies to resume negotiations to re-enter the country and said it would let it set up a diplomatic presence in Washington.
The moves were not likely to go unnoticed by the participants in Beijing, since U.S. officials have held up Libya as an example for North Korea to follow after Tripoli voluntarily decided to give up weapons of mass destruction.
Ahead of Friday's session, the six sides were working on a joint statement, the establishment of a working group and when next to meet, delegates said.
A South Korean official said this round of talks, which took six months of diplomacy to pull together after an inconclusive first round in Beijing last August, would continue Saturday.
Negotiators were tight-lipped as they left their hotels for the state guest house where the talks were being held.
"It's another day," was all that U.S. chief delegate James Kelly said to a crowd of reporters.
During Thursday's round, South Korea, China and Russia offered North Korea energy aid in exchange for freezing its weapons programs, delegates said.
Details of North Korea's proposals were murky and it was not clear what could be agreed in Friday's session.
"SALAMI TACTIC"
"The United States is saying that it can only discuss our demands after we give up all nuclear programs, including for peaceful purposes, as it continues with its stale demand that we give up nuclear programs first despite our flexible position," the North Korean embassy said in Beijing.
"It is because of this that there has not been a breakthrough in the solution of the problems."
Russia quoted the North as saying it was willing to stop its "military" nuclear programs, but not "peaceful" ones.
Yonhap news agency said the move was designed to be able to extract compensation for both programs during drawn-out negotiations.
"This is a 'salami tactic' of slicing the sausage very thinly to maximize compensation," it said.
The nuclear crisis erupted in October 2002 when U.S. officials said North Korea had admitted to a covert program to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. It has since denied saying any such thing.
Analysts in Washington said the United States would be hard-pressed to conclude this latest round of talks on a positive note without at least an ambiguous North Korean vow to dismantle all nuclear programs. |
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