North Korea will resume nuclear disarmament talks after a 13-month boycott on July 26, the South Korean Foreign Ministry said yesterday, when diplomats from five nations will try to press Pyongyang to drop its nuclear weapons program.
North Korea agreed earlier this month to return to the talks, after being assured by the top US nuclear envoy that Washington recognized its sovereignty. South Korea's Foreign Ministry said yesterday the talks would convene next week but gave no closing date.
The previous three rounds starting in 2003 lasted for several days and failed to lead to any breakthroughs. South Korea is pressing for this round of the six-nation talks to be more flexible and last longer -- possibly up to a month or more.
South Korea plans to "play a progressive and active role in making substantial progress at this round of six-party talks for resolution of the North Korean nuclear problem," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the US have sought at the talks to persuade the North to abandon its nuclear weapons. The nuclear crisis was sparked in late 2002 when US officials accused the North of running a secret uranium enrichment program.
In February, the North claimed publicly for the first time that it had nuclear weapons, and it has since made other moves that would allow it to harvest weapons-grade plutonium from its main nuclear reactor. Experts believe that the North has enough plutonium to make at least a half-dozen bombs, but it has never tested any weapons that would confirm its arsenal.
Meanwhile, in a move sure to raise concerns in North Korea, activists were to meet yesterday at a Washington conference on North Korean human rights that is partially funded by the US.
US President George W. Bush has also decided to appoint a special envoy for North Korean human rights who was to appear at the conference, but the announcement is being delayed and his attendance there canceled out of concern over the delicate nuclear negotiations, a senior US official said in Washington on condition of anonymity.
In Tokyo, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said yesterday ahead of the nuclear talks that Japan is still committed to normalizing diplomatic relations with North Korea. In 2002, he visited Pyongyang, where the two countries agreed to reconcile, but relations have stalled over the North's nuclear ambitions and Tokyo's demands for more information on the fate of several Japanese abducted by North Korea.
"Japan's policy has not changed at all, that we will normalize ties with North Korea in compliance with the Pyongyang declaration" at the 2002 summit, Koizumi told the media.
Earlier this week, North Korea said it and the US should agree to coexist and respect each other at the renewed nuclear talks.
"The talks should not be ones for their own sake. One side should not be allowed to use the talks for achieving the sinister purpose of disarming the other party," the North's main Rodong Sinmun newspaper wrote Monday in a commentary quoted by the country's official Korean Central News Agency.
Russia's Foreign Ministry yesterday applauded the north's decision to return to the talks and said it hopes the negotiations will move forward.
"The Russian side welcomes this decision and expresses the hope that the upcoming meeting in Beijing will bring visible progress," ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
SUSPICION: Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing returned to protests after attending a summit at which he promised to hold ‘free and fair’ elections, which critics derided as a sham The death toll from a major earthquake in Myanmar has risen to more than 3,300, state media said yesterday, as the UN aid chief made a renewed call for the world to help the disaster-struck nation. The quake on Friday last week flattened buildings and destroyed infrastructure across the country, resulting in 3,354 deaths and 4,508 people injured, with 220 others missing, new figures published by state media showed. More than one week after the disaster, many people in the country are still without shelter, either forced to sleep outdoors because their homes were destroyed or wary of further collapses. A UN estimate
The US government has banned US government personnel in China, as well as family members and contractors with security clearances, from any romantic or sexual relationships with Chinese citizens, The Associated Press (AP) has learned. Four people with direct knowledge of the matter told the AP about the policy, which was put into effect by departing US ambassador Nicholas Burns in January shortly before he left China. The people would speak only on condition of anonymity to discuss details of a confidential directive. Although some US agencies already had strict rules on such relationships, a blanket “nonfraternization” policy, as it is known, has
TIT-FOR-TAT: The arrest of Filipinos that Manila said were in China as part of a scholarship program follows the Philippines’ detention of at least a dozen Chinese The Philippines yesterday expressed alarm over the arrest of three Filipinos in China on suspicion of espionage, saying they were ordinary citizens and the arrests could be retaliation for Manila’s crackdown against alleged Chinese spies. Chinese authorities arrested the Filipinos and accused them of working for the Philippine National Security Council to gather classified information on its military, the state-run China Daily reported earlier this week, citing state security officials. It said the three had confessed to the crime. The National Security Council disputed Beijing’s accusations, saying the three were former recipients of a government scholarship program created under an agreement between the
RSS