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North Korea Nuclear Talks Unlikely to Resume This Month, South Korean Official Says
The likelihood that North Korea nuclear disarmament negotiations will resume this month is slim in the wake of U.S. allegations about Pyongyang’s financial crimes, Agence France-Presse reported today (see GSN, Feb. 6). South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon said there was no response from Pyongyang to China’s offer to restart the Beijing talks. “I can’t assure you that the talks will resume this month,” Ban said. “We find it regrettable that the talks are undergoing difficulties because of the issues that have nothing to do with the [nuclear] agenda,” he added (Agence France-Presse, Feb. 7). The top Japanese envoy to bilateral talks with North Korea said today that Pyongyang must settle the nuclear dispute before normalizing relations with Tokyo, the Associated Press reported. “In order to normalize relations between Japan and North Korea, it’s not just the abduction issue but also the nuclear issue and missile issue that need to be solved,” said Tadamichi Yamamoto, referring to Pyongyang’s Cold War-era kidnappings of Japanese nationals. The talks between the two nations today entered their fourth day in Beijing, according to AP (Audra Ang, Associated Press/Mainichi Daily News, Feb. 7). A Japanese official said the North Korean delegation, while reaffirming the importance of the six-nation talks, said they had no plans to resume them any time soon, Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported today. “They (North Korean officials) agreed on the importance of the six-party talks but they did not say they would be back to the framework quite soon,” said the Japanese official (Deutsche Presse-Agentur, Feb. 7).
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