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North Korea Reaffirms Willingness to End Nuclear Program
North Korea reaffirmed that it is willing to halt its nuclear activities if the United States drops its “hostile policy” toward the reclusive dictatorship, the London Independent reported today (see GSN, Nov. 14). “North Korea is willing to realistically abandon nuclear development at the phase when the U.S. hostile policy towards North Korea is removed and threats against North Korea is eliminated,” a North Korean spokesman said (Jae Suk Yoo, London Independent, Nov. 17). Pyongyang also said today that it is looking toward the next round of six-nation talks on the nuclear crisis. “We maintain the invariable stand to seek a negotiated peaceful solution to the nuclear issue,” a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman said. “As the D.P.R.K. declared more than once, it is ready to abandon in practice its nuclear program which the U.S. is concerned about at the phase where its hostile policy is fundamentally dropped and its threat to us removed in practice,” the spokesman added (Korean Central News Agency, Nov. 17). At the next round of talks, U.S. officials are expected to propose the removal of nuclear material from North Korea, the Kyodo News Agency reported (Jung-Ahn Kim, Dong-A Ilbo, Nov. 16). U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs James Kelly arrived in Japan yesterday for talks on the upcoming summit. “The discussion was excellent. We discussed every conceivable subject and we didn’t decide on any of them,” Kelly said. He met with senior Japanese officials, including Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda. “It’s all about preparation and things we need to talk about for (the) six-way talks,” Kelly added (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Nov. 17). U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, meanwhile, said the United States was planning to pull its forces in South Korea back from the demilitarized zone to put them in a better position to react to a North Korean offensive. “We understand that weakness can be provocative,” Rumsfeld said at a press conference with his South Korean counterpart Cho Young-kil. “Neither of our governments would do anything that would in any way weaken the deterrent and the capability to defend,” he added (Robert Burns, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Nov. 17). A member of the European Parliament, meanwhile, met last month with Kim Yong-nam, the chairman of North Korea’s Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly. Glyn Ford said Saturday that North Korea has “absolutely no problem” with the European Union taking part in the talks that have so far included six nations, including North and South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the United States. Ford also said that North Korea appears willing to bargain with their nuclear deterrent. “It’s clear that North Koreans genuinely fear a pre-emptive strike by the United States. Whether that’s likely to happen or not, it is certainly a factor in their own decision-making process,” he said. “They seem to be willing to negotiate away their nuclear capability in exchange for such a security agreement,” he added (Asia Pulse, Nov. 17).
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