U.S. ready for 2nd high-level meeting to restart 6-way talks: official

By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, Dec. 10 (Yonhap) -- The United States is ready to have another
high-level meeting with North Korea to woo the North back to six-party talks on
its denuclearization, a senior State Department official said Thursday.
Stephen Bosworth, special representative for North Korea policy, finished a
three-day trip to Pyongyang earlier in the day without obtaining the North's
commitment to return to the six-party talks. The forum, involving the United
States, Russia, China, Japan and the two Koreas, has been deadlocked over
international sanctions for North Korea's nuclear and missile tests.
"They understand they eventually have to come back to the six-party process,"
said the senior official, asking anonymity. "The North Koreans have not said yes
(to a resumption of the six-party talks). And whether the next step is a phone
call that says, 'Okay,' and 'Set it up,' or 'We need a next meeting,' we will be
prepared for both of those possibilities."
The official was quite confident that the North will come back to the six-party
talks eventually "because, otherwise, the alternative is we will continue to
aggressively enforce sanctions through continued consultations with the other
partners in the six-party process."
Bosworth said in Seoul that he met with North Korean officials, including Kang
Sok-ju, first vice foreign minister in charge of nuclear issues, adding, "It
remains to be seen when and how the DPRK will return to the six-party talks."
DPRK stands for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of
Korea.
"This is something that will require further consultations among all six of us,"
he said.
The U.S. point man on North Korea, however, said the sides have "identified some
common understandings on the need for, and the role of, the six-party talks and
the importance of implementation of the 2005 joint statement."
The 2005 deal calls for the North's nuclear dismantlement in return for provision
of massive economic aid, normalization of ties between the North and the U.S. and
Japan and establishment of a peace regime to replace the armistice signed at the
end of Korean War in 1953.
In the lead-up to the first high-level talks since Obama's inauguration in
January, North Korean officials and media called for the establishment of a peace
treaty, the lack of which they said has led to U.S. hostility toward North Korea,
including U.N. sanctions.
Bosworth said that he discussed the issue in Pyongyang.
"So once we have been able to reconvene the six-party process and begin to gain
significant traction on the issue of denuclearization, I would expect that we
will all be prepared to discuss the evolution or the negotiation of a peace
regime for the Korean peninsula," he said.
U.S. President Barack Obama, meanwhile, reconfirmed his pledge to seek
denuclearization of North Korea and Iran.
"It's also incumbent upon all of us to insist that nations like Iran and North
Korea do not game the system," Obama said while receiving the Nobel Peace Prize
in Oslo, Norway, according to a transcript released by the White House. "Those
who care for their own security cannot ignore the danger of an arms race in the
Middle East or East Asia. Those who seek peace cannot stand idly by as nations
arm themselves for nuclear war."
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, for her part, told reporters that
Bosworth's meeting with the North Koreans was "quite positive."
"The bottom line is that these were exploratory talks, not negotiations," she
said. "They were intended to do exactly what they did. The approach that our
administration is taking is of strategic patience in close coordination with our
six-party allies."
Philip Crowley, assistant secretary of state for public affairs, also
characterized the meeting as a "good start," although he said, "There's still
much work to be done."
"We will come back, do the consultations with the other members of the six-party
process, and we would await a more definitive response from North Korea as to how
we proceed in the days and weeks ahead," he said.
hdh@yna.co.kr
(END)