US wants China to clean up N.Korea nuclear "mess"
Posted on: Saturday, 19 November 2005, 08:18 CST
By Elaine Lies
PUSAN, South Korea (Reuters) - The top U.S. negotiator to six-country talks on North Korea's nuclear programs urged China on Saturday to "take a little more responsibility for cleaning up that mess."
A fifth round of talks broke off last week in Beijing with the United States and North Korea far apart after Pyongyang offered to freeze but not dismantle its nuclear programs in return for compensation. Washington said that was unacceptable.
Speaking on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, Assistant U.S. Secretary of State Christopher Hill emphasized the need for multilateral talks.
"We just finished a round last week, and we hope to get going in a few more weeks," said Hill, who was talking to a group of university students from APEC countries. "We have many options for dealing with this problem, but diplomacy is the best one. The one option we don't have is to walk away."
A Chinese statement issued last week said the parties -- Russia, China, Japan and the two Koreas as well as the United States -- had agreed to hold a second session of the fifth round at the earliest possible date.
Hill said he felt China's past failure to prevent North Korea -- a long-time ally -- from gaining nuclear weapons meant it should work a little harder now to resolve the problem.
"I think it's time for the Chinese to take a little more responsibility for cleaning up that mess," he said.
In a breakthrough statement in September at an earlier round of the talks, North Korea said it would disarm in exchange for aid and security guarantees. It is also demanding a light-water reactor for civil use.
But the details and timing are far from being agreed.
"North Korea is saying, we need you first to recognize us, first give us help, give us a lot of economic help, and then we'll think about getting rid of the weapons," Hill said.
"But it's going to be the other way around."
Hill also said he was extremely concerned about North Korea's human rights record, raising an issue that has angered Pyongyang in the past.
"North Korea's human rights record is something that should make every person in the world feel a certain personal sense of moral revulsion," he said. "You can't have a normal relationship with a country that keeps a gulag."
Although he said he understood that changing things would be a long-term process, North Korea needed to start working on it as human rights will continue to be a factor in the future.
The six-way talks began in 2003 when China sought to broker a peaceful compromise after the United States accused North Korea of covertly building atomic weapons and Pyongyang pulled out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
North Korea said in February it had nuclear weapons.
Source: REUTERS
User Comments (0)
RSS Feeds