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U.S. Officials Cautious, Hopeful After North Korea Agrees to Talk
U.S. officials reacted with cautious optimism yesterday to reports of North Korea’s willingness to hold another round of talks on defusing the Korean nuclear crisis (see GSN, Oct. 30). Following talks with a senior Chinese official, North Korea said it was willing to participate in talks if they lead to a “package solution based on the principle of simultaneous actions.” “We are encouraged by the reports we have seen that North Korea has agreed in principle to continue the six-party talks,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan said yesterday. The first round of six-way talks were held in Beijing in August and included the United States, North and South Korea, China, Russia and Japan. “The president has made it very clear that the multilateral or the multiparty process provides the best hope for achieving our shared objective of getting North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions and end its nuclear weapons program,” McClellan added. The U.S. State Department expressed concern that North Korea might be demanding an agreement that did not require Pyongyang to make several U.S.-sought moves before it receives any benefits in exchange. “I would just point out ‘simultaneity’ is not a word that we have used,” said U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher. “That may be the way they have described the proposals they made at an earlier round of talks. We have also got ideas and put proposals on the table,” he added. The United States, according to Boucher, is trying to achieve “a series of steps that would have to be taken in order to achieve a verifiable and irreversible end to North Korea’s nuclear weapons program” (Anthony Faiola, Washington Post, Oct. 31). A top North Korean defector — in Washington for talks with U.S. lawmakers — warned against trusting North Korea in any agreement. “I don’t think that any promise made by Kim Jong Il is of any significance,” said Hwang Jang Yop, a former high-ranking North Korean official who defected six years ago (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Oct. 31). “I don’t understand how we can actually guarantee the continued existence of a dictator that abuses human rights,” Hwang said of a U.S. offer to provide a written promise not to attack North Korea. “It’s almost like you Americans telling the terrorist organizations that ‘if you promise not to terrorize people again, we will leave you alone.’ That’s not what the war on terror is about,” he added (Shaughnessy/Labott, CNN.com, Oct. 30).
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