|
|||||
|
|||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
 |
 |
    |
|
|
|||
 |
|
||
|
|||
|
|
|
|
||||||||
|
North Korea Working Talks Possible for November
Negotiations aimed at resolving the conflict over North Korea’s nuclear program could resume with working-level talks next month, diplomats told Reuters yesterday (see GSN, Oct. 28). “The Chinese side wants to have any form of meeting as soon as possible,” said a diplomat who has been involved in the talks. “The Americans wish to have the working group meeting in November.” “A plenary meeting I think will be impossible, but maybe working groups,” he added (Reuters, Oct. 28). Meanwhile, Pyongyang said yesterday that a U.S.-sponsored naval WMD-interdiction drill held Tuesday off the coast of Japan (see GSN Oct. 26; GSN, Oct. 28) could undercut efforts to resume nuclear talks, Reuters reported. The maneuvers constitute “a breach of the Charter of the United Nations, international law and order and a dangerous act that could entail global instability,” North Korean U.N. Ambassador Pak Gil Yon wrote Tuesday in a letter to Secretary General Kofi Annan. Pak charged that the exercise “expressly represents an arrangement for the pre-emptive attack against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” and “will create an obstacle to the peaceful solution of the nuclear issue of the Korean Peninsula” (Irwin Arieff, Reuters, Oct. 28). A former South Korean lieutenant general and current chairman of Seoul’s Emergency Planning Commission said today that long-term resolution of the nuclear standoff would only become possible once the communist regime in Pyongyang is replaced with a democracy, Reuters reported. “A permanent solution to the North Korean nuclear issue does not seem possible until free democracy is established on the entire Korean Peninsula,” said Kim Hee-sang. “I am not very optimistic on the results of the six-party talks” (Martin Nesirky, Reuters, Oct. 29). Elsewhere, Lee Bu-young, chairman of South Korea’s ruling Uri Party, yesterday advised Japanese leaders against placing economic sanctions on North Korea in response to the nuclear standoff and other issues, the Kyodo news agency reported. Lee told Democratic Party of Japan President Katsuya Okada that sanctions could trigger “something unwanted by both Japan and South Korea to happen,” according to a lawmaker in Okada’s party. “North Korea is aware that assistance from both our countries is important and is opening its doors to Japan,” Lee was also quoted as saying (Kyodo/Monjok Tongshin, Oct. 28).
| ||||||||||
Back to top
