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North Korean Officials Arrive in Japan for Conference
North Korea’s top nuclear negotiator and his delegation arrived in Japan today to attend a security conference, with officials from the five other countries involved in talks on Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program also expected to show up, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, April 6). Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan said he “would not reject” a request for bilateral talks with U.S. officials during the session, but that it was not his primary mission while in Tokyo. “I’m here for the security meeting,” Kim said. “It has nothing to do with the six-party talks. The U.S. already knows what they should do to resume six-party talks” (Hans Greimel, Associated Press/China Post, April 7). The United States does not plan to lift financial sanctions on North Korean entities allegedly engaged in illicit financial activities, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton said yesterday. Bolton said North Korea should change its behavior if it is displeased by U.S. policy, the Yonhap News Agency reported. “It’s inconceivable to me that the United States would not take steps to prevent the manipulation of its currency, violation of its laws, or behavior that would support … the advance of the North Korean nuclear weapons program,” he said (Yonhap I, April 7). Meanwhile, Pyongyang and Seoul have announced that they would resume bilateral talks later this month, Agence France-Presse reported today. North Korea last month pulled out of the negotiations in protest of U.S.-South Korean military drills but has now proposed meeting in Pyongyang from April 21-24, Seoul’s Unification Ministry announced. Seoul is likely to use the meeting to seek a return to six-nation nuclear talks, according to AFP (Agence France-Presse, April 7). A U.S. expert on North Korea predicted that the U.S. standoff with Pyongyang is likely to deteriorate, Yonhap reported yesterday. “As time goes on, I am expecting, I am waiting for North Korea to act in a provocative manner, to lash out verbally, potentially even with a missile or even a nuclear test,” said Peter Beck, the North East Asia project director of the International Crisis Group. “Especially as Washington continues to try to squeeze them, and they are going to look for a way to get the world's attention by saying or doing something that is provocative.” “I am very pessimistic (about the future of the six-party talks),” he said. “Washington is not serious about negotiating. They are not willing to compromise. They are not willing to have an active bilateral dialogue with North Korea,” he added (Yonhap II, April 6).
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