|
|||||
|
|||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
 |
 |
    |
|
|
|||
 |
|
||
|
|||
|
|
|
|
||||||||
|
U.S., Japanese, South Korean Diplomats Meet Today on Nuclear Crisis In an effort to coordinate their North Korea policy, Japan is scheduled to host meetings today with South Korean and U.S. diplomats (see GSN, Sept. 26). “As they will discuss measures to (stem) the crisis, preparations for a new round of six-way talks are of course expected to be among items on the agenda,” a Japanese Foreign Ministry official said. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific affairs James Kelly will represent Washington and South Korean Deputy Foreign Minster Lee Soo-hyuck will represent Seoul. Mitoji Yabunaka, chief of the Japanese Foreign Ministry’s Asian and Oceanic affairs bureau, will host the meeting (Agence Frace-Presse, Sept. 29). During the gathering, Japan is expected to ask Kelly to articulate exactly what conditions North Korea must meet before Washington will grant a long-debated security guarantee (Daily Yomiuri, Sept. 29). South Korean Foreign Minister Yoon Young-kwan said today that if the United States favors regime change in North Korea, the region will be drawn close to military conflict. “If North Korea believes that the United States and the outside world are seeking drastic change against the wishes of the North, it will probably never give up its nuclear option,” Yoon said. “On the contrary, it will cling more desperately to the nuclear option as a last resort,” the foreign minister added (Associated Press, Sept. 29). North Korea, meanwhile, lashed out at U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, calling him “old” and “politically illiterate,” according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency. Rumsfeld is, according to KCNA, “not a guy who the D.P.R.K. can deal with.” “It is not likely at all that he would speak truth as he is obsessed with wantonly harassing peace and security in different parts of the world and igniting wars. His outbursts, therefore, can not be construed otherwise than a desperate shrill cry of a psychopath on his death bed,” the news agency said (Korean Central News Agency, Sept. 27).
| ||||||||||
Back to top
