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North Korea Nuclear Talks Could Resume Next Month
South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon said Friday that North Korea could return to multilateral talks on its nuclear weapons program next month, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Jan. 27). “We have some indications that we will have a resumption of the six-party talks in February,” Ban said. He said the recent trip by North Korean leader Kim Jong Il to China might have brought about a breakthrough (Associated Press I/Miami Herald, Jan. 28). Meanwhile, South Korea and other nations worry that hard-liners in the Bush administration might be using allegations of North Korean financial crimes to undermine the negotiations, the New York Times reported Thursday. While Washington first began to suspect North Korea of counterfeiting U.S. currency in the late 1980s, some critics have questioned why Washington waited until September to raise the issue. Sanctions were imposed not long after North Korea on Sept. 19 agreed to abandon its nuclear program, the Times reported. “The timing could have been poor coordination” between law enforcement officials and negotiators, said Peter Beck, North East Asia director at the International Crisis Group. “Or it could have been sabotage by those who still want regime change.” The Bush administration ordered the inquiry shortly after taking office in 2001, and it took officials four years to gather evidence, said David Asher, a former State Department official who oversaw the investigation. “The timing is just a coincidence,” Asher said. “The administration wanted us to prove this. They didn’t want this to end up like Iraqi WMDs” (Martin Fackler, New York Times, Jan. 29). North Korea on Saturday demanded proof of the alleged financial misdeeds, and issued another warning against possible aggression. “Dark clouds of a nuclear war are hanging low over the Korean Peninsula,” the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a commentary. “The ever-more frantic moves of the U.S. to ignite a new war against (North Korea) would only compel it ... to bolster its deterrent for self-defense in every way,” it said (Associated Press II/Pravda, Jan. 28).
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