ID :
105745
Wed, 02/10/2010 - 11:59
Auther :
Shortlink :
https://www.oananews.org//node/105745
The shortlink copeid
U.S. urges N. Korea to keep pledge to return to 6-way talks: State Dept.
By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 (Yonhap) -- The United States called on North Korea Tuesday to follow through on its promise to return to the six-party nuclear talks.
"North Korea is saying the right things, that the six-party process should
resume, and that it remains committed to denuclearization," State Department
spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters through a teleconference. "But the right
words must be followed by action. Words by themselves are not sufficient."
Crowley was discussing the pledge North Korean leader Kim Jong-il made to Wang
Jiarui, head of the Chinese Communist Party's international liaison department,
Monday when Kim met with Wang in Pyongyang, the fifth such meeting for the
Chinese official since 2004.
North Korea's chief nuclear envoy, Kim Kye-gwan, accompanied Wang on his return
to Beijing Tuesday, giving rise to media speculation that the sides are
discussing reopening the nuclear talks in return for China's economic aid.
Pyongyang is said to be feeling the pinch from the U.N. sanctions imposed after
its nuclear and missile tests early last year.
The North has been boycotting the nuclear talks, which involve the two Koreas,
China, the U.S., Japan and Russia, claiming U.S. hostility, and recently
demanded, as a precondition to returning, that sanctions be lifted and a peace
treaty be signed to formally end the 1950-53 Korean War.
Crowley said the U.S. welcomes Kim Kye-gwan's trip to Beijing.
"We absolutely support interaction between North Korean officials and our
six-party partners," he said, adding he hoped Kim Kye-gwan "will hear the same
message from the Chinese that he's heard from the United States."
The spokesman referred to the trip to Pyongyang by Stephen Bosworth, special
representative for North Korea policy, in December, the first direct high-level
contact for the Obama administration.
"We expect that that will be the message that the Chinese deliver to Kim Kye-gwan
while he's in Beijing, that North Korea should allow China to schedule the next
six-party meeting, and North Korea should again commit itself to the obligations
that it made previously," Crowley said.
The exchange visits by Wang and Kim Kye-gwan are part of a flurry of diplomacy to
help revive the multilateral nuclear talks, which have been on and off since they
were launched in 2003.
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's special envoy, Lynn Pascoe, flew to
Pyongyang Tuesday for a four-day stay to discuss the North's nuclear ambitions,
as well as providing humanitarian aid to the impoverished North.
The visit is the first bilateral contact since 2004, when Maurice Strong,
then-Secretary General Kofi Annan's special envoy for North Korea, visited the
North Korean capital.
Kurt Campbell, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs,
last week toured Seoul and Tokyo to reconfirm their pledge that they will not
discuss easing sanctions and a peace treaty unless North Korea returns to the
six-party talks first.
U.S. officials have said that North Korea should show up for the six-party talks
sooner or later as the reclusive state is under pressure from economic sanctions,
although reopening the nuclear talks does not guarantee any substantial progress
in the North's nuclear dismantlement.
The resumption of the nuclear talks might not happen before another bilateral
meeting, perhaps another trip to Pyongyang by Bosworth or by Kim Kye-gwan to the
U.S., some experts said.
In a related move, the two Koreas are apparently in negotiations for another
inter-Korean summit, the third of its kind after ones in 2000 and 2007, although
ties have chilled since the inauguration of the conservative President Lee
Myung-bak in early 2008.
Lee suspended unconditional aid to North Korea, ending shipments of hundreds of
thousands of tons of food and fertilizer provided every year by his two liberal
predecessors, and called on the North first to make progress in the nuclear
talks.
And unlike his predecessors, who shunned the nuclear issue in summit meetings
with Kim, Lee has said he will not meet with the North Korean leader unless he
can discuss what the North insists is a bilateral issue with the U.S.
Seoul and Pyongyang in recent weeks have also been engaging in talks for the
operation of an industrial park in the North's border town of Kaesong and the
revival of the tours suspended for more than a year and a half due to a tragic
shooting death of a South Korean tourist in a Northern seaside resort.
Those talks were held even as North Korea fired artillery rounds along the
disputed maritime border with South Korea and threatened war in response to South
Korea's military drills and alleged contingency plans for a possible regime
change in Pyongyang.
hdh@yna.co.kr
(END)
WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 (Yonhap) -- The United States called on North Korea Tuesday to follow through on its promise to return to the six-party nuclear talks.
"North Korea is saying the right things, that the six-party process should
resume, and that it remains committed to denuclearization," State Department
spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters through a teleconference. "But the right
words must be followed by action. Words by themselves are not sufficient."
Crowley was discussing the pledge North Korean leader Kim Jong-il made to Wang
Jiarui, head of the Chinese Communist Party's international liaison department,
Monday when Kim met with Wang in Pyongyang, the fifth such meeting for the
Chinese official since 2004.
North Korea's chief nuclear envoy, Kim Kye-gwan, accompanied Wang on his return
to Beijing Tuesday, giving rise to media speculation that the sides are
discussing reopening the nuclear talks in return for China's economic aid.
Pyongyang is said to be feeling the pinch from the U.N. sanctions imposed after
its nuclear and missile tests early last year.
The North has been boycotting the nuclear talks, which involve the two Koreas,
China, the U.S., Japan and Russia, claiming U.S. hostility, and recently
demanded, as a precondition to returning, that sanctions be lifted and a peace
treaty be signed to formally end the 1950-53 Korean War.
Crowley said the U.S. welcomes Kim Kye-gwan's trip to Beijing.
"We absolutely support interaction between North Korean officials and our
six-party partners," he said, adding he hoped Kim Kye-gwan "will hear the same
message from the Chinese that he's heard from the United States."
The spokesman referred to the trip to Pyongyang by Stephen Bosworth, special
representative for North Korea policy, in December, the first direct high-level
contact for the Obama administration.
"We expect that that will be the message that the Chinese deliver to Kim Kye-gwan
while he's in Beijing, that North Korea should allow China to schedule the next
six-party meeting, and North Korea should again commit itself to the obligations
that it made previously," Crowley said.
The exchange visits by Wang and Kim Kye-gwan are part of a flurry of diplomacy to
help revive the multilateral nuclear talks, which have been on and off since they
were launched in 2003.
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's special envoy, Lynn Pascoe, flew to
Pyongyang Tuesday for a four-day stay to discuss the North's nuclear ambitions,
as well as providing humanitarian aid to the impoverished North.
The visit is the first bilateral contact since 2004, when Maurice Strong,
then-Secretary General Kofi Annan's special envoy for North Korea, visited the
North Korean capital.
Kurt Campbell, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs,
last week toured Seoul and Tokyo to reconfirm their pledge that they will not
discuss easing sanctions and a peace treaty unless North Korea returns to the
six-party talks first.
U.S. officials have said that North Korea should show up for the six-party talks
sooner or later as the reclusive state is under pressure from economic sanctions,
although reopening the nuclear talks does not guarantee any substantial progress
in the North's nuclear dismantlement.
The resumption of the nuclear talks might not happen before another bilateral
meeting, perhaps another trip to Pyongyang by Bosworth or by Kim Kye-gwan to the
U.S., some experts said.
In a related move, the two Koreas are apparently in negotiations for another
inter-Korean summit, the third of its kind after ones in 2000 and 2007, although
ties have chilled since the inauguration of the conservative President Lee
Myung-bak in early 2008.
Lee suspended unconditional aid to North Korea, ending shipments of hundreds of
thousands of tons of food and fertilizer provided every year by his two liberal
predecessors, and called on the North first to make progress in the nuclear
talks.
And unlike his predecessors, who shunned the nuclear issue in summit meetings
with Kim, Lee has said he will not meet with the North Korean leader unless he
can discuss what the North insists is a bilateral issue with the U.S.
Seoul and Pyongyang in recent weeks have also been engaging in talks for the
operation of an industrial park in the North's border town of Kaesong and the
revival of the tours suspended for more than a year and a half due to a tragic
shooting death of a South Korean tourist in a Northern seaside resort.
Those talks were held even as North Korea fired artillery rounds along the
disputed maritime border with South Korea and threatened war in response to South
Korea's military drills and alleged contingency plans for a possible regime
change in Pyongyang.
hdh@yna.co.kr
(END)
