U.S. not to give aid to N. Korea without nuke talks progress: Clinton

By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, April 30 (Yonhap) -- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said
Thursday that the U.S. government will not provide economic aid to North Korea
unless Pyongyang stops making nuclear and missile threats and returns to the
six-party nuclear disarmament talks.
"We have absolutely no interest and no willingness on the part of this
administration to give them any economic aid at all," Clinton told a Senate
Appropriations Committee hearing. "They are digging themselves into a deeper and
deeper hole with the international community."
She was addressing North Korea's threat to boycott the six-party talks, restart
its nuclear facilities and enhance its nuclear arsenal in defiance of the U.N.
Security Council's condemnation of its recent missile test. The U.N. also aims to
impose embargoes on three North Korean firms involved in the trade of parts for
missiles and other weapons of mass destruction.
North Korea had been disabling its nuclear facilities under a now-endangered
six-party deal.
hdh@yna.co.kr
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