Pressure put on Pyongyang to rejoin 6-party talks
Published: 22 Aug. 2009, 06:35
China’s chief nuclear negotiator wrapped up a five-day visit to North Korea yesterday, a mission reportedly focused on bringing Pyongyang back to disarmament talks, state media announced.
Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei, who had arrived in the North Korean capital on Monday, left Friday after a series of meetings with top officials, China’s Xinhua news agency and the North’s Korean Central News Agency reported.
Wu met with his North Korean counterpart Kim Gye-gwan as well as Foreign Minister Pak Ui-chun on the “regional situation,” the agencies reported.
Meanwhile, the United States insisted Thursday that North Korea return to six-nation nuclear talks, brushing aside an appeal for direct talks by the North’s envoys.
The two North Korean diplomats got a rare glimpse of the United States outside of New York, touring a biomass plant in the western state of New Mexico where they voiced interest in bringing alternative energy to their resource-poor nation.
The State Department gave the pair, who are accredited at the United Nations in New York, special permission to travel to the southwestern state to see Governor Bill Richardson, a veteran diplomat who hosted them at his sprawling hacienda.
Richardson on Wednesday relayed a message from the North Koreans that the release of two U.S. reporters to former president Bill Clinton this month merited a change in heart from Washington on the thorny issue of bilateral talks.
But the State Department stood firm that while the United States was ready to meet one-on-one with North Korea, such talks must be part of Pyongyang’s return to a six-nation disarmament deal that also includes China, Japan, South Korea and Russia.
“We are prepared to have bilateral discussions with North Korea within the framework of six-party talks,” said State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley.
North Korea in April stormed out of the six-nation agreement under which it was supposed to give up its nuclear program in return for badly needed fuel aid and security guarantees.
“As we’ve made clear to North Korea for a long time, within the six-party framework, there’s plenty of room for a bilateral dialogue,” Crowley said. “But North Korea knows what it has to do. It has to come back to a six-party process, be willing to take the kinds of steps that the international community has made clear that it needs to do,” he said. AFP
Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei, who had arrived in the North Korean capital on Monday, left Friday after a series of meetings with top officials, China’s Xinhua news agency and the North’s Korean Central News Agency reported.
Wu met with his North Korean counterpart Kim Gye-gwan as well as Foreign Minister Pak Ui-chun on the “regional situation,” the agencies reported.
Meanwhile, the United States insisted Thursday that North Korea return to six-nation nuclear talks, brushing aside an appeal for direct talks by the North’s envoys.
The two North Korean diplomats got a rare glimpse of the United States outside of New York, touring a biomass plant in the western state of New Mexico where they voiced interest in bringing alternative energy to their resource-poor nation.
The State Department gave the pair, who are accredited at the United Nations in New York, special permission to travel to the southwestern state to see Governor Bill Richardson, a veteran diplomat who hosted them at his sprawling hacienda.
Richardson on Wednesday relayed a message from the North Koreans that the release of two U.S. reporters to former president Bill Clinton this month merited a change in heart from Washington on the thorny issue of bilateral talks.
But the State Department stood firm that while the United States was ready to meet one-on-one with North Korea, such talks must be part of Pyongyang’s return to a six-nation disarmament deal that also includes China, Japan, South Korea and Russia.
“We are prepared to have bilateral discussions with North Korea within the framework of six-party talks,” said State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley.
North Korea in April stormed out of the six-nation agreement under which it was supposed to give up its nuclear program in return for badly needed fuel aid and security guarantees.
“As we’ve made clear to North Korea for a long time, within the six-party framework, there’s plenty of room for a bilateral dialogue,” Crowley said. “But North Korea knows what it has to do. It has to come back to a six-party process, be willing to take the kinds of steps that the international community has made clear that it needs to do,” he said. AFP
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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