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U.S. Seeks Regional Security Meeting as North Korea Continues Boycott of Six-Party Nuclear Talks
The United States today called for an Asian regional security meeting following North Korea’s continuing refusal to rejoin six-nation talks on its nuclear activities, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, July 26). U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said prospects appear bleak for a resumption of six-party talks on the sidelines of this week’s Association of Southeast Asian Nations conference in Malaysia. The top U.S. envoy to the stalled multilateral negotiations, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, said he planned to convene a wider security session at the conference instead. “We will have some kind of multilateral meeting to discuss security issues in Northeast Asia,” Hill said. He did not comment on whether the delegation from Pyongyang would be asked to attend that meeting. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said today that while Beijing continues to back the six-party talks, it remains “flexible.” Regional discussions “wouldn’t mean that we’re holding a new kind of negotiation, it’s just the way for everyone to exchange views about shared concerns,” she said. Foreign ministers from Japan and South Korea discussed the nuclear issue yesterday and pledged to “make joint efforts to hold the six-party meeting at any level, not only the ministerial level,” a South Korean official said. Hill said that if a broader meeting is held, “it won’t be discussing six-party talks. It will be discussing broader and more future-type issues” (Jae-Soon Chang, Associated Press I/TheStar.com, July 27). Rice said ASEAN leaders would use “the momentum that was created by the resolution in the [U.N.] Security Council that binds states to take certain action to prevent any assistance” to North Korea’s WMD efforts, AP reported today. “I do think it is important to follow up those discussions with the other members of the six parties, but also other interested regional states that might be able to help provide some of the capability that we need to ensure” that illicit materials are not shipped to North Korea, she said (Associated Press II/Yahoo!News, July 27).
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