North Korea Nuclear Talks End With No Progress Reported

The latest round of six-party talks ended today with no signs that negotiators had made progress in their efforts to persuade North Korea to close down its nuclear program, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Dec. 21).

There is no set date for the negotiations to continue, but U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said they would resume in “weeks, not months.”

North Korean diplomats, apparently under orders from Pyongyang, refused to budge from their position that the issue of U.S. financial sanctions had to be addressed before nuclear talks, negotiators said.

“Clearly, negotiators ought to come with some instructions to negotiate,” Hill said.

“We have to make progress — we should have made that progress this week,” he added.

“North Korea lost a very important opportunity,” said lead Japanese negotiator Kenichiro Sasae.  “We find the North Korean attitude extremely regrettable.”

North Korea repeated its threat to strengthen its nuclear arsenal, AP reported.

“The U.S. is taking a tactic of both dialogue and pressure, and carrots and sticks,” said lead negotiator Kim Kye Gwan.  “We are responding with dialogue and a shield, and by a shield we are saying we will further improve our deterrent.”

“We have requested the U.S. to release the sanctions first and then go into a discussion on substantive issues for the implementation” of the September 2005 agreement in which Pyongyang agreed in principle to eliminate its nuclear program (Bo-Mi Lim, Associated Press I/Yahoo!News, Dec. 22).

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice yesterday questioned whether North Korea actually means to ever end its nuclear weapons program, AP reported.

“They’re signed on denuclearization,” she said.  “We’ll see whether or not they follow through” (Associated Press II, Dec. 22).

Meanwhile, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun yesterday said the United States must accept some of the blame for lack of implementation of the September 2005 agreement, Agence France-Presse reported. 

He noted that the U.S. Treasury Department moved against Banco Delta Asia, the Macau-based institution it suspects of supporting illicit North Korean financial activities, only days after the accord was reached at six-party talks.  That led the bank to freeze $24 million in North Korean assets.

“If you look at it in a bad light, you may say [the U.S. State and Treasury departments] were playing a prearranged game,” Roh said.

“The Sept. 19 declaration was buried the moment it was born,” he added.  “But when spring comes and sprouts start shooting up (the declaration) may become a cornerstone for the dismantling of the Cold War system on the Korean Peninsula and for peace” (Agence France-Presse/ABS-CBN News, Dec. 22).

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