Bush warns North Korea amid missile tensions
Posted on: Wednesday, 21 June 2006, 09:11 CDT
By Tabassum Zakaria
VIENNA (Reuters) - President George W. Bush warned North Korea on Wednesday against test-firing a long-range missile, while other U.S. officials rejected an overture from Pyongyang for bilateral talks with Washington on the issue.
Bush, speaking in Vienna after talks with European Union leaders, said North Korea must abide by international agreements on missile tests.
"North Koreans have made agreements with us in the past and we expect them to keep their agreements," Bush told a news conference.
"For example agreements on test launches -- we think it would be in the world's interest to know what they're testing, what they intend to do on their test."
Washington says there is evidence North Korea might test-fire its Taepodong-2 long-range missile and has activated a ground-based interceptor missile-defense system in case Pyongyang goes ahead with a launch.
Earlier, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said the North wanted talks with the United States over its planned missile test, a sign Pyongyang might be ready to step back from the mounting crisis.
But Washington ruled out any special talks over the issue which it, along with South Korea and Japan, says poses a grave danger to a region already deeply worried by North Korea's nuclear ambitions.
"We know that the U.S. is concerned about our missile test launch," Yonhap quoted North Korea's deputy chief of mission at the United Nations in New York, Han Song-ryol, as saying.
"Our position is to solve this situation through discussions," Han said, but added that Pyongyang had a right to develop and test missiles.
A senior U.S. official traveling with Bush in Europe rejected the suggestion of bilateral talks.
"Their desire for bilateral talks is well known, as is our position on bilateral talks," the official said in Vienna.
U.S. Ambassador to Japan Thomas Schieffer told reporters in Tokyo: "They have the opportunity to do that through the six-party talks," referring to bilateral discussions. "They don't have to take bad policies to talk to the United States."
RESPONSE OPTIONS OPEN
The six-way talks involve the two Koreas, Japan, China, the United States and Russia and have been stalled since November. The talks are aimed at ending Pyongyang's nuclear arms programs in return for aid and security assurances.
Schieffer said all options were on the table in terms of a response to any missile launch, although other U.S. officials have said that Washington was unlikely to try to shoot it down.
Tokyo has also threatened a harsh response.
Former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000 for his attempts to bring North Korea in from the cold, canceled a trip to Pyongyang planned for next week because of the tensions.
Kim, who orchestrated an unprecedented summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il six years ago, had hoped to use the meeting to help restart the nuclear talks.
North Korea has refused to return to the talks unless the United States ends a crackdown on firms it suspects of aiding the North in illicit activity such as counterfeiting.
Some analysts have said North Korea may be feeling the pinch of the crackdown and Pyongyang is piqued that U.S. and world attention has shifted to concerns about Iran's nuclear ambitions.
"One reason North Korea may be preparing for a test is because what they want to avoid is the perception of weakness," said a diplomatic source in Seoul.
"They are feeling strangled," the source said.
North Korea shocked the world in 1998 when it fired a missile, part of which flew over Japan and landed in the Pacific Ocean. Pyongyang trumpeted that as a satellite launch.
Through a long-practiced policy of brinkmanship, Pyongyang might be trying to improve conditions under which it could return to the six-party talks, analysts said.
"Could they be bluffing? I suppose they could be," Schieffer said. "It's a pretty dangerous game to be engaged in and hopefully they will step back and realize it is not in their interests to do this."
(Additional reporting by Jon Herskovitz and Jack Kim in Seoul and Linda Sieg in Tokyo)
Source: REUTERS
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