|
|
| North Korea Demands Two-Way Talks, U.S. | | |
Sponsor |  Dustwitch | Feb 11, 2005 7:33pm | Fri Feb 11, 2005 10:03 PM ET
By Jon Herskovitz and Steve Holland
SEOUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - North Korea demanded bilateral talks with the United States over its nuclear weapons program but Washington quickly rejected the idea on Friday and insisted Pyongyang return to six-party negotiations.
"There's plenty of opportunities for North Korea to speak directly with us in the context of the six-party talks," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.
North Korea said on Thursday it had acquired nuclear weapons to boost its defenses in the face of U.S. hostility and the policy of the White House to seek "regime change," and said it would not return to the multilateral talks.
A North Korean diplomat at the United Nations said in an interview published on Friday: "If the United States wants to talk to us directly, it can be seen as a sign of a change in the U.S. hostile policy toward North Korea."
McClellan insisted President Bush will stick to the negotiating format in which the United States, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia negotiate with North Korea.
The six parties have held three rounds of talks since August 2003 and the process has stalled. Countries around the globe had urged North Korea to return to talks on ending its nuclear program after it said it had nuclear weapons and pulled out of the disarmament discussions.
"All of North Korea's neighbors in the region recognize that this is a regional problem and it requires a multilateral approach for resolving it," McClellan said. "We believe the six-party talks, like North Korea's neighbors, are the way to resolve the situation."
But U.S. officials held open the possibility of direct talks within the six-party process. "We've done that before. We'd do it again," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters.
CHALLENGE TO BUSH
The move by the North presents a major challenge to Bush, who also faces a growing crisis over Iran's nuclear ambitions, and some analysts said was a dangerous negotiating tactic.
"The assessment is that North Korea may be trying to raise its negotiating stakes," South Korean Vice Foreign Minister Lee Tae-shik was quoted as saying. "But it could turn into a very serious problem if the North takes additional steps."
McClellan said that, as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Thursday, "North Korea should have no reason to believe that any nation wants to attack them, that there's a proposal on table that provides the way forward for North Korea to eliminate its nuclear weapons program and to realize better relations with the international community when they make that commitment."
more ....today.reuters.com/News/newsArticle.aspx [today.reuters.com/News/newsArticle.aspx]-
12T030219Z_01_SP342205_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-KOREA-NORTH-DC.XML |
|
| North Korea Demands Two-Way Talks, U.S. | | |
You need to Sign-up for StumbleUpon to post to this forum
| |
|
This Just in ...... → Discussion