Clinton pushes DPRK on nukes

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(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-07-24 07:23

PHUKET, Thailand: US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton urged Asian nations Thursday to vigorously enforce the latest UN sanctions against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). She said Washington would pursue "every avenue" to denuclearize the Korean peninsula.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (L) walks past the DPRK's chief delegate Pak Kun-gwang (C) before the group photo session of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum in Phuket July 23, 2009. [Agencies]

Clinton also was holding out the prospect of full diplomatic relations and other incentives for Pyongyang to scrap its nuclear weapons program.

But the DPRK responded that it will not re-enter six-party talks to end its nuclear weapons program, citing the "deep-rooted anti-DPRK policy" of the United States.

"The six-party talks are over,'" said Ri Hung-sik, spokesman for the DPRK delegation at a security forum of the Association of South East Asian Nations. The DPRK's six-party negotiations - with the US, Russia, China, Japan and the ROK - ended last year after Pyongyang restarted its nuclear program.

Clinton said the DPRK "must end its pursuit of nuclear weapons and fulfill its pledges" to verifiably dismantle its nuclear arms production complex, she said, according to a text of her prepared remarks.

She called on the international community to implement the UN sanctions that are intended to deny DPRK ships access to ports for shipping banned cargo and to cooperate in enforcing financial sanctions against designated firms that support the nation's nuclear program.

The DPRK, bristling at being described by Clinton as behaving like an unruly child, responded in kind yesterday, calling the secretary of state vulgar and less than clever.

"She has made a spate of vulgar remarks unbecoming for her position everywhere she went since she was sworn in," Pyongyang's KCNA news agency quoted a foreign ministry spokesman as saying.

It said her comments earlier in the week that DPRK behavior such as a recent spate of missile launches was like an unruly child demanding attention "suggests she is by no means intelligent".

"We cannot but regard Mrs. Clinton as a funny lady as she likes to utter such rhetoric, unaware of the elementary etiquette in the international community.

"Sometimes she looks like a primary schoolgirl and sometimes a pensioner going shopping," the report added.

"She can make even a little contribution to the implementation of the US administration's foreign policy as secretary of state only when she has understanding of the world."

Italy stops yacht sale

Italy has blocked the sale of two luxury yachts to the DPRK because it suspects they were destined for its leader Kim Jong-Il, the Financial Times of London said yesterday.

A contract for the sale of the two yachts, worth 12.5 million euros ($17.8 million) was terminated this month after a probe by the Italian government and anti-fraud police, the FT said.

The two boats were confiscated by the ministry of economic development amid concerns that allowing the sale would breach international sanctions against Pyongyang, the newspaper said.

A deposit was paid for work on the boats, although it was unclear by whom.

Fake photo retracted

A young ROK soldier has been punished for selling a fake photo of the son of DPRK leader Kim Jong-Il.

Japan's TV Asahi in June aired what it called an exclusive image of Kim Jong-un, thought to be the likeliest successor to his father.

It retracted its report after the picture turned out to be that of an ROK construction worker.

AP - Reuters