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North Korea Rejects Further Nuclear Talks, Says It Won’t Give Up Weapons Program
North Korea’s state news agency announced that the nation would not participate in nuclear talks nor consider dismantling its nuclear weapons program in light of recently disclosed nuclear experiments by South Korea, the Financial Times reported Sunday (see GSN, Sept. 17). “It is self-evident that the resumption of the talks can no longer be discussed unless the U.S. drops its hostile policy based on double standards toward [North Korea] and that the latter can never dismantle its nuclear deterrent force,” said the Korean Central News Agency. “What infuriates (North Korea) is that the U.S. has so far shut its eyes to the secret nuclear activities of its allies under its nuclear umbrella but has pressurized (North Korea) to accept (dismantlement),” said KCNA. The state news agency said it was unfair that all six countries taking part in the talks — China, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Russia and the United States — either have nuclear weapons or the potential to develop them, yet only North Korea’s program was being discussed, according to the Times (Andrew Ward, Financial Times, Sept. 19). South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun met in Moscow yesterday with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss North Korea’s nuclear activities and other issues, Agence France-Presse reported. Senior officials in both countries agreed that “there is no ‘safe’ alternative to the regime of Kim Jong Il” in North Korea at this time, according to the Russian business daily Kommersant (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, Sept. 21). Putin yesterday called on North Korea to resume six-party talks. “Our country has consistently called for a non-nuclear status on the Korean Peninsula and for the continuation of the six-nation negotiating process,” Putin said (AFP/SpaceWar.com, Sept. 21). Roh, however, said today that he saw no reason to “rush” talks and that he believed the U.S. presidential election was the main factor in Pyongyang’s decision to stall, Reuters reported. “It is important to take things one step at a time, not to rush things, and to stick to the principle on the question of North Korea’s nuclear weapons as long as the situation does not worsen,” Roh said. (Martin Nesirky, Reuters, Sept. 22). Meanwhile, a Chinese official yesterday expressed concern about the stalled talks, focusing on the “lack of trust” between the United States and North Korea, AFP reported. “From the current attitudes of the parties involved, there are major difficulties in the attempt to hold the meeting as scheduled,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan. “We’re worried but we won’t abandon our efforts to push all parties to display pragmatism, restraint and flexibility in their efforts,” he said (AFP, Sept. 21). After meeting in New York with North Korean Vice Foreign Minister for human rights Choe Su Hon, British Foreign Office minister Bill Rammell said North Korean officials indicated they remained committed to taking part in nuclear talks despite refusing to set a date, CNN reported. “We do need to see positive steps by North Korea to come back to the next round of the six-party talks to set a date to start the program of disarmament,” said Rammell (Jonathan Wald, CNN.com, Sept. 21). Elsewhere, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said Sunday that he does not believe a reported explosion earlier this month on North Korea’s northern border with China was a nuclear blast, but is not “100 percent sure,” the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Sept. 17). Reports from agencies with devices that monitor explosions suggest “that it doesn’t look like a nuclear explosion,” IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said on CNN’s Late Edition. “I am leaving the door open,” he said. “I think I would like to go there. ... If North Korea would like to exclude that possibility completely, they would be well advised to allow us and other experts to go and inspect that. As long as we are not there, I cannot exclude that possibility 100 percent” (Associated Press/Chicago Sun-Times, Sept. 20).
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