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New Round of North Korea Nuclear Talks Could Be Discussed During Rice Visit, Seoul Says
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s upcoming visit to South Korea will provide an opportunity to discuss resuming stalled nuclear talks with North Korea, a senior official in Seoul said today (see GSN, July 5). The two-day visit, scheduled as part of an Asia trip next week, “will be a good opportunity to have substantial discussions for an early resumption” of the six-nation negotiations, said South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon. “An outline to resume the talks should be made in July,” Ban said. “We hope North Korea would meet the expectations of the international community by returning (to the talks) and do its part as a responsible member.” Cho Tae-yong, head of the South Korean Foreign Ministry’s task force on the nuclear issue, is in Washington for consultations, a South Korean official told the Associated Press (Bo-Mi Lim, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, July 6). U.S. Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Carl Levin (D-Mich.) on Monday called on President George W. Bush to send an envoy to meet directly with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, the Associated Press reported. “The North Koreans have said they regard a U.N. sanctions resolution as tantamount to war, and Security Council members such as China are not likely to support sanctions unless there is a failure of diplomacy that the international community views as entirely North Korea’s fault,” Clinton and Levin wrote in a column in the Washington Post. The Bush administration’s diplomatic effort to end Pyongyang’s nuclear work “is carried on in an almost lackadaisical fashion, captive to pride and preconditions,” the column says. They also advised Bush to offer considerable economic assistance to North Korea and to avoid verbal attacks, according to AP (Associated Press, July 5). European Union lawmakers are scheduled to visit North and South Korea this month to discuss the nuclear issue, Agence France-Presse reported yesterday. Led by Austria’s Ursula Stenzel, the nine-member delegation is expected to visit Pyongyang from July 9-14 to meet with North Korea’s second-in-command, Kim Yong Nam, and Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun before going on to South Korea for another three days of meetings (Agence France-Presse/INQ7.net, July 5).
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