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Bush Says No Compromise on North Korea Sanctions
U.S. President George W. Bush said yesterday that his administration would not compromise on financial sanctions imposed on North Korea for alleged financial misconduct, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Jan. 26). “When somebody is counterfeiting our money, we want to stop them from doing that. And so we are aggressively saying to the North Koreans, ‘Don’t counterfeit our money,’” Bush said. The U.S. Treasury Department last year accused Macau-based Banco Delta Asia of being a “primary money laundering concern” with ties to North Korea’s WMD efforts. Washington then implemented financial sanctions against eight North Korean entities connected to the bank, AFP reported. Bush also said it was “very important” for Pyongyang to resume multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations. “There’s a six-party talk framework that is hopeful and positive for them. Requires them to make some difficult decisions and, of course, one of them is to get rid of the nuclear arsenal,” he said. “But we’re more than willing and want the six-party talks to continue. I think the framework is a framework that can eventually yield to a peaceful settlement of the issue,” Bush said (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Jan. 26). North Korea said again today that it would not return to the six-nation talks until Washington lifts sanctions on its companies, the Associated Press reported. “Concessions in a serious confrontation with U.S. imperialists mean ruin,” the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper announced in a commentary. “Our unchanged position is that we would respond to good intentions with good intentions and counter hard-line moves with ultra-hardline moves” (Kwang-Tae Kim, Associated Press/Khaleej Times, Jan. 27). Meanwhile, North Korea is preparing to resume bilateral talks with Japan next week, Agence France-Presse reported today. Officials are scheduled to meet on Feb. 4 in Beijing to discuss North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, its Cold War-era abductions of Japanese citizens and normalization of diplomatic ties, the Japanese Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The talks are expected to last several days, according to AFP (Agence France-Presse/Hindustan Times, Jan. 27).
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