U.S. hopes for N. Korea's return to 6-way talks: State Dept.

By Hwang Doo-hyong

WASHINGTON, Jan. 4 (Yonhap) -- The United States Monday expressed hope that North Korea will return to the six-party talks on its denuclearization, which the North has boycotted over international sanctions for its nuclear and missile tests early last year.

"We hope that North Korea will agree to resuming the six-party talks," State
Department spokesman Ian Kelly said. "We are hopeful that we'll get some actions
toward that end and not just words. We are hopeful we can all sit down and reach
our desired goal, which is the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in a
verifiable manner."
Kelly's remarks were made in response to the New Year's message issued by North
Korea last week to reconfirm its pledge to establish a peace regime and achieve
denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula through dialogue and negotiations.
The spokesman reacted positively to the statement, saying, "I think there's
reason to be more hopeful now than certainly a few months ago."
Kelly took note of the visit to Pyongyang by Stephen Bosworth, special
representative for North Korea policy, last month, the first high-level contact
between the sides since the inauguration of Barack Obama in January last year.
"We've had direct talks for the first time in some time," he said. "We expect
there to be some follow-up to those talks in some form."
Kelly was repeating the U.S. government's position that it is ready to have
another high-level, face-to-face meeting with the North to pave the way for
reopening the multilateral nuclear talks also involving South Korea, China, Japan
and Russia.
U.S. officials have said they will not reward the North just for returning to the
talks, and reiterated that sanctions will continue until the North takes
substantial steps toward denuclearization.
However, returning to the six-party talks is "the main thing right now," Kelly
said. "Once that starts, a lot of other actions can take place."
He was apparently addressing North Korea's demand for the establishment of a
peace treaty to replace the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War.
Pessimists say North Korea may drag its feet by demanding a peace treaty before
proceeding with denuclearization.
Bosworth said last month that future six-party talks should address "an overall
sequencing of denuclearization; the move toward a new peace regime, a peace
treaty; the provision of energy and economic assistance; normalization of
relations; the establishment of some sort of a structure for Northeast Asian
security."
The U.S. point man on North Korea, however, said, "We're not going to negotiate
on any of these issues until we're back at the table in the six-party framework."
Kelly, meanwhile, expressed hope that North Korea will allow consular access to
Robert Park, 28, a Christian missionary from Tucson, Arizona, who was detained
after crossing from the Chinese border into North Korea on Christmas Day to call
attention to human rights conditions in the reclusive communist state.
"There's a number of actions that we, of course, are looking for from the North
Koreans," Kelly said. "First and foremost in the very immediate term is
information on Mr. Park, who they've said they have detained for crossing their
border. I don't have anything new on that."
In an apparent effort not to allow the incident to affect U.S. efforts to bring
the North back to six-party talks, Darby Holladay, a department spokesman, said
last week, "We consider this to be a consular issue unrelated to any security or
political issues."
The U.S. government is seeking consular access to the American through the
Swedish mission since Washington has no diplomatic ties with Pyongyang.
hdh@yna.co.kr
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