China's point man on North Korea held talks with officials from the South yesterday ahead of crucial six-nation talks aimed at resolving the standoff over the communist state's nuclear weapons program.
Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi and South Korea's top Foreign Ministry officials called for joint efforts to secure concrete results at the second round of meetings, which begin Feb. 25.
Meanwhile, North Korea said yesterday it urged Japan to support its offer to freeze all its nuclear activities in return for economic concessions from the US.
"We hope that substantive results could be made through joint efforts at the second round of talks," Wang said, heading into discussions with Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo-hyuck in Seoul.
Wang and Lee represented their nations in a first round of talks among the US, the two Koreas, China, Russia and Japan in August, which ended without much progress.
"Whatever difficulties surface, we must firmly push ahead with the process of peace talks," said Wang, who also discussed the upcoming talks with Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon and Vice Foreign Minister Choi Young-jin.
They had "in-depth" discussions on a range of issues, including the North's nuclear freeze proposal, said Cho Tae-yong, chief of Seoul's newly established task force for the nuclear dispute.
North Korea has offered to freeze all its nuclear activities as a first step in resolving the nuclear dispute, only if Washington provides free oil shipments, lifts economic sanctions and removes the Communist nation from its list of countries that sponsor terrorism.
Washington has demanded that North Korea first start dismantling its nuclear programs.
Before coming to Seoul, Wang discussed the nuclear dispute with North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan.
North Korea said it had won Chinese support for its freeze proposal during Kim's visit to Beijing.
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
Two former Chilean ministers are among four candidates competing this weekend for the presidential nomination of the left ahead of November elections dominated by rising levels of violent crime. More than 15 million voters are eligible to choose today between former minister of labor Jeannette Jara, former minister of the interior Carolina Toha and two members of parliament, Gonzalo Winter and Jaime Mulet, to represent the left against a resurgent right. The primary is open to members of the parties within Chilean President Gabriel Boric’s ruling left-wing coalition and other voters who are not affiliated with specific parties. A recent poll by the
TENSIONS HIGH: For more than half a year, students have organized protests around the country, while the Serbian presaident said they are part of a foreign plot About 140,000 protesters rallied in Belgrade, the largest turnout over the past few months, as student-led demonstrations mount pressure on the populist government to call early elections. The rally was one of the largest in more than half a year student-led actions, which began in November last year after the roof of a train station collapsed in the northern city of Novi Sad, killing 16 people — a tragedy widely blamed on entrenched corruption. On Saturday, a sea of protesters filled Belgrade’s largest square and poured into several surrounding streets. The independent protest monitor Archive of Public Gatherings estimated the
Irish-language rap group Kneecap on Saturday gave an impassioned performance for tens of thousands of fans at the Glastonbury Festival despite criticism by British politicians and a terror charge for one of the trio. Liam Og O hAnnaidh, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, has been charged under the UK’s Terrorism Act with supporting a proscribed organization for allegedly waving a Hezbollah flag at a concert in London in November last year. The rapper, who was charged under the anglicized version of his name, Liam O’Hanna, is on unconditional bail before a further court hearing in August. “Glastonbury,
RSS