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U.S. Stands Firm on North Korea Sanctions
The United States yesterday said it would not lift sanctions against North Korea in order to lure Pyongyang back to multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Jan. 3). The sanctions are “protecting our national interest and combating [North Korea’s] illicit activities,” which include alleged counterfeiting, drug trafficking and illegal arms exports, said White House spokesman Scott McClellan. “We are going to continue to take action to stop them from engaging in illicit activities,” he said. “I think that this latest statement by the regime in North Korea is yet another in a long list of pretext for delay,” McClellan added. U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the sanctions were separate from the nuclear issue. “The six-party talks [are] focused on the specific issue of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula. So we view these two issues as mutually exclusive,” McCormack said. It is “important and perfectly reasonable” to take actions “to protect American currency, because there were concerns about counterfeiting, there were concerns about money laundering,” he said (Agence France-Presse/Channel NewsAsia, Jan. 4). U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Alexander Vershbow today called on Pyongyang to resume disarmament negotiations without conditions, AFP reported. “The United States is ready to return to the table without attaching any new conditions, and we expect North Korea to do the same,” he said. Vershbow added that North Korea’s leaders must “end their country’s self-imposed isolation by getting out of the nuclear business” in 2006. “If they do, my government is ready to fulfill its commitments ... including negotiating a permanent peace regime for the Korean Peninsula and beginning the process of normalizing relations with Pyongyang,” he said (Agence France-Presse, Jan. 4).
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