SEOUL: North Korea announced yesterday it would resume talks in Beijing on February 25 with the US, China and neighbouring countries to resolve a crisis over Pyongyang’s nuclear arms ambitions.
The date for a second round of talks was given after months of intensive shuttle diplomacy since the first six-party session ended without progress in August. The talks also include Russia, Japan and South Korea.
China said it hoped for substantial results this time, while a North Korean envoy at separate talks in Seoul said the fresh nuclear negotiations signified a US acceptance of Pyongyang’s position on the 16-month-old impasse.
South Korea expressed a more modest goal of setting up a working group to tackle technical issues. A senior Russian official said he did not expect a breakthrough but the talks could still be useful.
“The DPRK and the US, the major parties concerned to the six-way talks, and China, the host country, agreed to resume the next round of the six-way talks from February 25 after having a series of discussions,” the North’s KCNA news agency said.
DPRK stands for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, North Korea’s official name.
The announcement came a day after Pakistani officials said the father of Pakistan’s atomic bomb had confessed to selling nuclear secrets to North Korea as well as to Libya and Iran.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said Beijing hoped they would produce a “written consensus”.
“The conditions for talks are there,” she said.
“We hope they can achieve substantial results.” South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo-hyuck told reporters the five parties excluding North Korea recognised a need to create a working group to discuss technical details.
“Whether North Korea will accept that is difficult to say, considering how sensitive North Korea’s position can be,” said Lee, who headed the South Korean delegation in the first round.
In Moscow, Interfax news agency quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov, Russia’s point man on North Korea, as saying: “Of course, one should not expect any breakthrough.
“The positions of the parties are too different,” he was quoted as saying. He said the talks would still be useful if they could clarify what could qualify as North Korea’s commitment to give up its nuclear arms programme.
The US wants North Korea to commit – at least by the end of the next round – to dismantling any nuclear arms programmes. Washington has offered then to lay out in detail how it could guarantee not to attack the state President George W. Bush called part of an “axis of evil” with Iran and pre-war Iraq.
North Korea has offered to freeze its nuclear activities in exchange for energy aid and diplomatic recognition from the US as the first step in resolving the dispute. – Reuters



photo:South Korea’s Kim Gwang-rim greets North Korean delegation leader Kim Ryung-sung upon the latter’s arrival at Inchon airport, Seoul, yesterday. – AFP
Last update on: 4-2-2004