(LEAD) U.S. to continue engaging N. Korea for 6-way talks: Clinton

(ATTN: ADDS more remarks by Clinton in paras 3-4)
By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 (Yonhap) -- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Sunday
said the Obama administation will continue engaging North Korea to convince the
communist state to return to stalled international nuclear talks.

"Engagement has brought us a lot in the last year," Clinton said in an interview
with CNN's "State of the Union." "In North Korea, when we said that we were
willing to work with North Korea if they were serious about returning to the
Six-Party Talks and about denuclearizing in an irreversible way, they basically
did not respond in the first instance."
She described North Korea as a nuclear-armed state, while noting non-state
networks like al-Qaida pose the greater threat.
"A nuclear-armed country like North Korea or Iran poses both a real or a
potential threat," she said. "But I think that most of us believe the greater
threats are the transnational non-state networks, primarily the extremists, the
fundamentalist Islamic extremists who are connected to al-Qaida in the Arab
Peninsula, al-Qaida in Pakistan and Afghanistan, al-Qaida in the Maghreb."
With regard to Pyongyang, the Obama's administration's continued engagement
produced strong international coordination to adopt U.N. sanctions to pressure
the impoverised North back to the nuclear talks, Clinton said.
"But because we were willing to engage, we ended up getting a very strong
sanctions regime against North Korea that China signed onto and Russia signed
onto and right now is being enforced around the world," Clinton said.
China, North Korea's staunchest communist ally, has agreed to the sanctions
resolutions due to the U.S. continued engagement, she said.
"Because we extended it, a neighbor like China knew we were going the extra mile
and all of a sudden said you're not just standing there hurling insults at them,
you've said all right, fine, we're willing to work with them," she said. "They
haven't responded, so we're going to sign on to these very tough measures."
The sanctions imposed after North Korea's nuclear and missile tests early last
year prompted the North to boycott the six-party talks, involving the two Koreas,
the U.S., China, Japan and Russia.
North Korea has demanded that, prior to the resumption of the nuclear talks,
sanctions be lifted and a peace treaty be signed to replace the armistice that
ended the 1950-53 Korean War.
Washington insists that Pyongyang return to the six-party talks before discussing
sanctions or any other issues involved.
Wang Jiarui, the head of the international department of the Chinese Communist
Party, is currently in Pyongyang to help jumpstart the deadlocked nuclear talks
which have been on and off since their inception in 2003.
Wang is expected to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il as he did in the
four previous visits to the North Korean capital since 2004.
State Department spokesman Philip Crowley Friday appreciated China's effort to
revive the nuclear talks.
"The Chinese senior officials have regular discussions with North Korea," Crowley
said of Wang's North Korean trip. "We value that leadership by China."
In another conciliatory gesture, North Korea Saturday freed Robert Park citing
the "sincere repentance of his wrongdoings."
The 28-year-old Korean American activist illegally entered the North on Christmas
Day to draw international attention to the North's human rights records, believed
to be among the worst in the world with several detention camps accommodating
hundreds of thousands of political prisoners.
North Korea also released two American journalists in August held for months for
illegal entry while reporting on North Korean defectors after former U.S.
President Bill Clinton met with Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang.
North Korea is holding another American citizen who illegally entered the North
in late January.
Crowley said Friday that the U.S. was still seeking consular access to the
person, who has not been identified, through the Swedish mission, which
represents U.S. interests in North Korea due to Washington's lack of diplomatic
ties.
Crowley also said that the U.S. is ready to provide humanitarian assistance to
North Korea suffering from a severe food shortage, noting North Korea's recent
revaluation of its currency had "a disastrous effect on the North Korean people."
"This is why we continue to stress to North Korea that your people can have a
brighter future if you are willing to work constructively with the international
community, choose to apply your resources to feed your people rather than
applying your resources to build missiles and other weaponry that potentially
destabilizes the region," he said.
hdh@yna.co.kr
(END)

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