|
Report: North Korea rejects US demand for talks
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-02-23 01:40
SEOUL, South Korea - North Korean leader Kim Jong Il rebuffed a U.S. demand
for immediate disarmament talks to end his nuclear weapons programs, saying
Washington needs to show sincerity and meet his conditions, the
country's official news agency said Tuesday.
 |
| North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, center, poses with Wang Jiarui,
second from left, head of the Chinese Communist Party's International
Department, for photos in Pyongyang, North Korea, Monday, Feb. 21, 2005.
[AP] | But in a rare comment on the nuclear standoff, Kim also said his
government's commitment to a peaceful solution to the nuclear dispute remains
unchanged, raising hopes that Kim would eventually go for a deal.
Both China and South Korea urged the United States and North Korea on Tuesday
for more flexibility in the two-year-old confrontation.
"We will go to the negotiating table anytime if there are mature conditions
for the six-party talks thanks to the concerted efforts of the parties concerned
in the future," Kim told a visiting Chinese envoy, expressing the hope that the
United States would show "trustworthy sincerity," according to the Korean
Central News Agency.
Kim's comments came less than two weeks after he flouted Washington and its
allies by claiming that it had nuclear weapons and would boycott the talks.
Kim spoke of his government's new position on Monday in a meeting with Wang
Jiarui, head of the Chinese Communist Party's International Department, KCNA
said.
He also said North Korea "would as ever stand for the denuclearization of the
Korean Peninsula and its position to seek a peaceful solution to the issue
through dialogue remains unchanged," the agency reported.
KCNA did not elaborate on what conditions Kim cited to the envoy from China.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Lou Fintor said the United States
will "resume the six-party talks at an early date without preconditions."
Japan's Chief Cabinet Spokesman Hiroyuki Hosoda urged North Korea to return
to negotiations "unconditionally."
After Wang's delegation returned to Beijing from Pyongyang, Chinese Foreign
Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said the nuclear standoff was at a "crucial
juncture" and urged both the United States and North Korea to demonstrate more
"sincerity and flexibility."
Kong wouldn't say whether China had offered North Korea more aid to return to
talks.
But Russia's ITAR-Tass news agency, quoting a source close to the Chinese
Embassy in Pyongyang, reported that Wang told Kim that China was ready to
increase oil deliveries to North Korea if it returned to the six-nation talks.
Following Pyongyang's rejection of further meetings over the nuclear issue on
Feb. 10, China drastically decreased oil deliveries to the energy-starved North,
the report said.
"This is not the sole lever of pressure on Pyongyang that Beijing has,"
ITAR-Tass quoted its unidentified source as saying.
Beijing has repeatedly called for "patience and calm" from all involved
parties, and has said it did not believe sanctions would work against North
Korea.
South Korea's Unification Minister Chung Dong-young called for a similar
approach, citing what he called "two minimum conditions" that needed to be met
before the talks could resume.
"The United States should recognize North Korea as a negotiation partner,"
Chung told South Korea's MBC Radio, without elaborating. "North Korea in its
part should withdraws its conditions for coming to the negotiating table."
In its rejection of further meetings over the nuclear issue on Feb. 10, North
Korea said it would only return to the talks that include South Korea, China,
Russia and Japan if the United States drops what Pyongyang called a "hostile"
policy toward the North.
At that time, it condemned a statement by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
who called North Korea an "outpost of tyranny," saying it was evidence that
Washington is seeking a regime change in Pyongyang.
During three rounds of talks in Beijing since 2003, North Korea has demanded
more aid and a peace treaty with Washington in exchange for giving up its
nuclear program — measures that it apparently hopes will guarantee the survival
of Kim's regime.
The talks have made little progress amid deep distrust between Washington and
Pyongyang. The United States wants a verifiable nuclear freeze and weapons
dismantlement as part of any deal. North Korea says it remains convinced
Washington wants to topple its communist regime, and that it needs a nuclear
deterrent for protection.
Though China helped defend North Korea in the 1950-53 Korean War, Beijing
worries that a nuclear-armed North would raise tensions in the region and prompt
Japan and South Korea to develop atomic weapons.
| |
 |
|
|
|
|
Today's
Top News |
|
|
|
Top World
News |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
