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U.S Envoy Won’t Commit to North Korea Visit
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, Washington’s top envoy to six-nation talks on North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, said he may visit Pyongyang in the coming weeks but stopped short of committing to such a trip, Agence France-Presse reported Saturday (see GSN, Sept. 22). “I’m sure I’ll be doing some traveling in the future but we have not made any decisions as to where,” Hill told the Japanese network ANN. Hill also said it was too early for a visit to North Korea by U.S. President George W. Bush (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Sept. 24). Pyongyang had on Thursday welcomed a potential visit by Hill, AFP reported. “If Christopher Hill is willing to visit my country with an intention of resolving the nuclear issue, then we would always welcome him,” said North Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Choe Su Hon. The South Korean daily Chosun Ilbo reported Thursday that Hill proposed to visit Pyongyang before the next round of multilateral talks in November. Choe added that Pyongyang had detected a shift in Washington’s attitude toward it, particularly in light of a U.S. pledge in the Beijing agreement (see GSN, Sept. 19) to recognize North Korea’s sovereignty. “This is different from what the United States has been saying (in past years),” he said (Agence France-Presse I/SpaceWar.com, Sept. 23). Choe urged Washington to supply Pyongyang with light-water nuclear reactors for electricity “as soon as possible,” but did not demand their delivery as a precondition for the elimination of the North’s nuclear arms program, the Washington Post reported Friday. He told the U.N. General Assembly that North Korea intended to “simultaneously” seek a nuclear energy program and allow the return of international inspectors. Choe said North Korea has “committed itself to dismantling the existing nuclear weapons program, returning to the [Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty] and allowing inspections of the [International Atomic Energy Agency]” (Colum Lynch, Washington Post, Sept. 23). North Korea yesterday denounced a draft U.S. policy on pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons, AFP reported (see GSN, Sept. 19). “The U.S. new doctrine on the use of nuclear weapons is of an increasingly belligerent and offensive nature,” announced the official Minju Joson daily. If Washington were to use nuclear weapons against North Korea, its people “will exercise their legitimate right to self-defense as a powerful means of retaliation,” the newspaper added (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, Sept. 25). Meanwhile, South Korea denied a newspaper report that its Defense Ministry suspected North Korea of constructing a uranium-enrichment nuclear weapons program, Yonhap reported Saturday. “The report is a far cry from the government’s judgment,” said a ministry statement. “The government has suspected the North of promoting a uranium enrichment program but believes that it has yet to reach the level of building a uranium enrichment plant,” the statement says (Yonhap, Sept. 24). Elsewhere, a South Korean ruling party lawmaker claimed yesterday that the United States deployed nuclear weapons in South Korea until 1992, when Pyongyang and Seoul signed the joint declaration on denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Choi Sung said U.S. forces kept nuclear weapons at Camp Page in Chuncheon, 80 kilometers east of Seoul, Yonhap reported. A 1987 document outlines standard operating procedures of the alleged nuclear weapons unit, Choi said. “Although there have been many rumors that the U.S. forces in South Korea maintained nuclear weapons (here) in the past, this is the first time (the rumor) has been confirmed by a document,” he said (Xinhua/People’s Daily online, Sept. 25).
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