N. Korea Agrees to Rejoin Six-Nation Talks
Posted on: Saturday, 9 July 2005, 12:00 CDT
SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea said Saturday it will rejoin six-nation nuclear arms talks in July, ending a more than yearlong boycott in a breakthrough announced on the eve of a meeting between Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Chinese leaders.
The statement came after North Korean and U.S. envoys held a previously unannounced meeting in Beijing.
The negotiations, which involve the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, China and Russia, will resume July 25, the North's official Korean Central News Agency said. A Bush administration official in Beijing said the talks would resume the week of July 25.
The top envoys to the negotiations from the United States and North Korea - U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill and North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan - met Saturday in the Chinese capital, KCNA said.
"The U.S. side clarified its official stand to recognize (North Korea) as a sovereign state, not to invade it and hold bilateral talks within the framework of the six-party talks," KCNA reported.
North Korea has long demanded that Washington apologize for remarks by Rice labeling it as one of the world's "outposts of tyranny." North Korea said Saturday it took Hill's comments at the Beijing meeting as "a retraction" of that earlier remark and decided to return to the nuclear talks.
The nuclear talks with representatives from China, Japan, Russia, the United States and the two Koreas last happened in June 2004. Since then, North Korea has refused to attend, citing "hostile" U.S. policies.
Rice arrived Saturday in Beijing on an Asian tour expected to focus on the North Korean nuclear issue, and also will travel to Japan, South Korea and Thailand.
In February, North Korea publicly claimed for the first time that it had nuclear weapons, and it has made other moves that would allow it to harvest more weapons-grade plutonium from its main nuclear reactor.
Hopes for a resumption of the arms talks rose last month after North Korean leader Kim Jong Il told a visiting South Korean minister that the North could return to the negotiations by July if Washington treats it with the appropriate respect.
The latest nuclear crisis with North Korea was sparked in late 2002 after U.S. officials accused Pyongyang of running a secret uranium enrichment program in violation of an earlier agreement between the two sides.
Despite the nuclear standoff, cooperation between North and South Korea has continued. A North Korean delegation arrived Saturday in Seoul for economic cooperation talks. The two Koreas resumed contact in May following a 10-month freeze when the North was angered by mass defections of its citizens to the South.
Source: Associated Press/AP Online
Related Articles
- North Korea Says Nuclear Test Successful
- Japan Warns North Korea on Nuclear Tests
- North Korea Planning Nuclear Test
- Reclusive North Korea halts projects with South
- China draft raises hopes at North Korea talks
- US Reasserts Opposition to North Korea Civilian Nuclear Programme
- China Presents Draft for Nuclear Document, North Korea Talks to Continue
- Rice, Japan map strategy for North Korea talks
- China's Help Sought on North Korea Talks
- North Korea Demands 'Nuclear Deterrence'
 |
 |
User Comments (0)
RSS Feeds