Home>News Center>World
         
 

Seoul asks Bush to focus on nuclear crisis
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-11-06 17:17

US President George W. Bush and his South Korean counterpart Roh Moo-Hyun have agreed to step up efforts to resume multilateral talks aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear weapons programme, officials said.

The agreement came when Roh called Bush late Friday to congratulate the US president on his re-election, the presidential Blue House said.

"The two presidents agreed to step up joint efforts to ensure that six-party talks may take place at the earliest possible date," spokesman Kim Jong-Min of the Blue House said.

"President Roh proposed that the two countries give top priority to resolving the North Korean nuclear issue so as to provide a decisive momentum to bring about peace on the Korean peninsula," he said.

"President Bush gave an affirmative response," he said.

Roh and Bush also agreed to discuss in detail the stand-off over North Korea's nuclear drive when they meet on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Santiago, Chile later this month.

The North Korean nuclear issue was also high on the agenda when South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon met with his Japanese counterpart Nobutaka Machimura here Saturday, officials of the foreign ministry here said.

Machimura, who arrived here late Friday for a brief visit until late Saturday, also discussed with Ban other pending issues including a summit between South Korea and Japan due to take place in Japan next month.

Pyongyang failed to turn up for a fourth round of the six-party talks scheduled for last month, including the two Koreas, the United States, Japan China and Russia.

The confrontation began in October 2002 when US officials said North Korea had admitted in a bilateral meeting to pursuing a covert uranium-enrichment programme.

North Korea, however, has since denied running such a programme, and has demanded food and energy aid and diplomatic concessions in return for refreezing an older, plutonium-based nuclear arms programme, mothballed in 1994.

Han Song-Ryol, deputy chief of North Korea's mission to the United Nations, this week told the liberal Hankyoreh daily that Pyongyang does not oppose the framework of six-party talks but was deeply suspicious of US moves.

"We suspect the United States has been using the six-way talks to earn time for its invasion of our country," he said, adding Washington's hostility had prompted Pyongyang to strengthen its "nuclear deterrent force".



 
  Today's Top News     Top World News
 

Nation likely to be 3rd largest trading power

 

   
 

Nutritional imbalance plagues people

 

   
 

Mine blast kills 33, injures 6 in Henan

 

   
 

Coal mining: Most deadly job in China

 

   
 

Shen and Zhao win Cup of China

 

   
 

Consumer price remains stable in October

 

   
  Police lose control of Mosul amid uprising
   
  Arafat buried in Chaotic scenes in West Bank
   
  U.S. may use Iraq meeting to engage Iran
   
  Bush vows second-term push for Palestinian state
   
  Dutch to withdraw troops from Iraq in March
   
  Haiti PM orders arrest warrant against Aristide
   
 
  Go to Another Section  
 
 
  Story Tools  
   
  News Talk  
  Are the Republicans exploiting the memory of 9/11?  
Advertisement