Obama calls on N. Korea to abandon nuclear ambitions

(ATTN: UPDATES with more details, background from 4th para)
By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, Dec. 10 (Yonhap) -- U.S. President Barack Obama Thursday called on
North Korea and Iran to abandon their nuclear ambitions and join international
efforts for nuclear dismantlement.

"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."
Obama's remarks come as Stephen Bosworth, special representative for North Korea
policy, finished a three-day trip to Pyongyang without obtaining the North's
commitment to return to the six-party talks on its denuclearization. The forum,
involving the United States, Russia, China, Japan and the two Koreas, has been
deadlocked over international sanctions over North Korea's nuclear and missile
tests.
"It remains to be seen when and how the DPRK will return to the six-party talks,"
Bosworth said in Seoul after meeting with North Korean officials, including Kang
Sok-ju, first vice foreign minister in charge of nuclear issues. 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.
In his acceptance speech, Obama reconfirmed his pledge to seek nuclear
disarmanent and a nuclear-free world.
"One urgent example is the effort to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and to
seek a world without them," he said. "In the middle of the last century, nations
agreed to be bound by a treaty whose bargain is clear: All will have access to
peaceful nuclear power; those without nuclear weapons will forsake them, and
those with nuclear weapons will work towards disarmament. I am committed to
upholding this treaty."
He was referring to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, despite which North
Korea, Iran, India and Pakistan have acquired nuclear weapons. The five
traditional nuclear powers, the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China,
are often denounced for their lack of effort to reduce nuclear stockpiles,
undermining the NPT.
hdh@yna.co.kr
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