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North Korea: Pyongyang Agrees to Multilateral Talks North Korea has agreed to multilateral talks — including as many as six nations — to help defuse the nuclear standoff on the Korean Peninsula, Agence France-Presse reported today (see GSN, July 30). Pyongyang’s ambassador to Moscow, Pak Ui Chun, delivered the news to the Russian Foreign Ministry. “On his leadership’s instructions, the ambassador said that North Korea supports holding six-nation talks with Russia’s participation to resolve the current difficult situation on the Korean Peninsula, and is taking active steps to organize (these talks),” the Russian Foreign Ministry said. “Russia welcomed this constructive decision of Pyongyang,” it added. North Korea had been insisting on direct talks with the United States to settle the crisis (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, July 31). The announcement came after a top U.S. diplomat derided North Korean requests for direct, bilateral negotiations with Washington. Pyongyang’s position is a “one-note piano concerto,” said U.S. Undersecretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton. Bolton also said that North Koreans live a “hellish nightmare” while “tyrannical dictator” Kim Jong Il lives like royalty, BBC News reported today (BBC News, July 31). “The days of (North Korean) blackmail are over,” Bolton said while in Seoul. “Kim Jong Il is dead wrong to think that developing nuclear weapons will improve his security,” he added (Martin Nesirky, Reuters, July 31). Bolton held talks with South Korean Foreign Minister Yoon Young-kwan, the Korea Herald reported. “Bolton said he felt during his visit to China that negotiations for nuclear talks have slowed down but China is still cautiously optimistic,” a South Korean Foreign Ministry official said. During the talks, Bolton reportedly said that the “ball is North Korea’s court” (Seo Hyun-jin, Korea Herald, July 31). Yoon and Bolton reportedly agreed “that the North Korean issue should be handled in the U.N. Security Council, but what’s important is the timing on when the council deals with the issue,” said Oh Joon, a senior South Korean Foreign Ministry official. “Our view is that we should wait a little bit more since international efforts are focused on finding a way to resume multilateral talks,” Oh added (Sang-hun Choe, Associated Press/Philadelphia Inquirer, July 31). U.S. President George W. Bush said yesterday that he had spoken with Chinese President Hu Jintao about the nuclear standoff on the Korean Peninsula. “I told President Hu that it is very important for us to get Japan and South Korea and Russia involved as well,” Bush said. “We are actually beginning to make serious progress about sharing responsibility on this issue, in such a way that I believe will lead to an attitudinal change by Kim Jong Il,” he said (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, July 31). The construction of light-water nuclear reactors in North Korea, meanwhile, will most likely be suspended in August, Yonhap News Agency reported. The United States and its regional allies are continuing to build the reactors under the 1994 Agreed Framework under which North Korea agreed to halt all nuclear activities in exchange for the reactors. Washington reportedly told South Korea and Japan that it would not allow technology transfers to the North (Yonhap News Agence/BBC Monitoring, July 31).
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