North Korea says 6-party talks could resume mid-Sept

By Nopporn Wong-Anan

PYONGYANG (Reuters) – North Korea blamed war games between
South Korea and the United States on Monday for a delay in
resuming six-party talks on its nuclear weapons programs, but
said negotiations could resume in the week of September 12.

The talks had been scheduled to resume this week, but a
spokesman for North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said Pyongyang
thought it would be best to wait until after the joint
U.S.-South Korean drills were over to resume the nuclear
discussions.

“Our position is to resume six-way talks in the week of
September 12 by when some of the dust of war exercises has
subsided … this is all what we can offer at this stage,” the
spokesman told KCNA news agency, according to Yonhap new
agency.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack
played down the delay, saying: “If the date is the week of
September 12th, then we’re ready to go back the week of
September 12th.”

“We’ve seen no indication that anybody is backing off their
commitment to returning to the talks,” he told reporters,
adding that China was working with others to set a date.

North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam-sun said earlier on
Monday the fourth round of talks involving the two Koreas, the
United States, Russia, Japan and China might resume “just
before the end of September.”

“If things are going well, mid-September is possible,” Paek
said, speaking through a translator to a small group of
reporters accompanying Thai Foreign Minister Kantathi
Suphamongkhon on a visit to the North Korean capital.

The fourth round of talks aimed at persuading Pyongyang to
scrap its atomic weapons programs in return for security
guarantees and economic aid went into recess on August 7.

Paek too blamed the delay on annual war games between the
United States and South Korea, that run from August 22 to
September 2 and consist of computer-simulated drills meant to
test the readiness of their forces and coordination of command
posts.

North Korea routinely denounces any joint military exercise
with U.S. and South Korean forces as a preparation for invasion
and a prelude to actual war.

McCormack said the drills were “an annual defensive
exercise involving the U.S. and South Korean forces that poses
no threat to the North.”

He urged all parties to return to the talks as soon as
possible and “resume the business-like atmosphere that they
demonstrated during the most recent session of the talks.”

North Korea has been playing the nuclear card to win
diplomatic and economic benefits since a standoff began in
October 2002, after Washington said Pyongyang had admitted to a
secret program to enrich uranium, violating a 1994 accord.

North Korea has since denied having such a program beyond
its known plutonium plant, but said this year for the first
time that it had nuclear weapons, arguing that it needed them
to deter a hostile United States.

WATCHING HU

Pyongyang said on Saturday that Washington’s decision to
appoint a special envoy to monitor human rights in North Korea
had cast a shadow over the talks. McCormack said the
appointment had nothing to do with the six-party talks.

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei, wrapping up a
three-day visit to Pyongyang, said the date was not important.

“The important thing is all the parties agreed to resume
talks and we all have kept (in) contact and negotiation in the
framework of the six-party talks” during the recess, Wu said.

In Seoul, South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman Lee
Kyu-hyung said the talks were likely to resume after Chinese
President Hu Jintao’s September 5-9 visit to the United States
and his meeting with President George W. Bush.

Some analysts said the reason for the delay might be that
Pyongyang wanted to assess the outcome of the summit between
China, its main ally, and the United States, the country it
considers its main adversary.

“My guess is that North Korea wants to look at the result
of the U.S.-China summit meeting,” said Kim Sung-han of the
Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security in Seoul.

“North Korea wants to be seen negotiating seriously, as
does the United States,” he said, but the two sides remained
too far apart on the key issue of Pyongyang’s right to a
civilian nuclear program to be able to reach agreement soon.

U.S. officials have been skeptical about allowing North
Korea to pursue such a program out of concern that it would
actually be used for military purposes.

Other analysts suggested that Pyongyang might be trying to
stall for time in the hope that a drawn-out process would make
it difficult for the other five parties to keep a united front.