New Zealand's foreign minister said yesterday that North Korean leaders told him they will stick to pledges to scrap their nuclear program but insist other nations must provide promised aid and political concessions in exchange.
"Their officials reaffirmed their full commitment in implementing current agreements," New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters said in Beijing following a two-day trip to Pyongyang.
"They also made it clear that this was contingent on all other six-party participants fulfilling their obligations on the agreed schedule," he said.
Peters was the highest-level Western official to visit the North since the government of leader Kim Jong-il exploded a nuclear device in October last year, prompting an international outcry. He said he met with Kim Yong-nam, the country's No. 2 official who serves as head of state, and the North's foreign affairs, trade and agriculture ministers.
US officials have expressed confidence that Pyongyang is carrying out commitments as part of talks that include South Korea, Japan, China and Russia.
But South Korea's defense minister said in a speech last week that the threat from the North has not diminished.
The South has warned the process could be derailed if Washington fails to remove the North from a list of terrorism sponsors.
The US government says it has begun that process, but its ally Japan and some US lawmakers are opposed.
New Zealand is not part of the six-nation talks, but Peters said his government was ready to support the denuclearization process. Wellington opened diplomatic relations with Pyongyang in 2001, while Washington and Tokyo have no formal ties with the North.
"I left the clear impression with the North Koreans that there is an enormous community out there that I believe would back their cooperation on this issue with significant investment and aid," Peters said.
Peters said that he previously talked with officials of all the other governments participating in the six-nation talks.
He said that while in Beijing he would meet China's top nuclear envoy, Wu Dawei (
A team of US experts has begun disabling the North's nuclear facilities, and Peters said officials told New Zealand diplomats the North was "cooperating fully."
The government of US President George W. Bush has accused the North of cheating on previous deals. Critics question whether the regime really is willing to give up its membership in the small group of nuclear-armed nations, despite incentives from the international community.
Peters said North Korean officials expressed concern about Tokyo's insistence on resolving the question of Japanese nationals who it says were abducted by the North's agents in the 1970s and 1980s. Tokyo has refused to provide aid under the denuclearization agreement unless Pyongyang accounts for abductees.
Peters said he urged the North Koreans not to let the issue obstruct the disarmament process.
"We sought to encourage them, given how important the issue that we're working on is, the disarmament of nuclear capability, to find ways to work through with the Japanese to a resolution of this issue," he said.
"We were totally focused on keeping their mind on what the six-party talks are about, why they began why they are of such importance now and not losing sight of the ultimate outcome," Peters said.
The Philippines yesterday said its coast guard would acquire 40 fast patrol craft from France, with plans to deploy some of them in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal is the “largest so far single purchase” in Manila’s ongoing effort to modernize its coast guard, with deliveries set to start in four years, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan told a news conference. He declined to provide specifications for the vessels, which Manila said would cost 25.8 billion pesos (US$440 million), to be funded by development aid from the French government. He said some of the vessels would
CARGO PLANE VECTOR: Officials said they believe that attacks involving incendiary devices on planes was the work of Russia’s military intelligence agency the GRU Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England. Poland last month said that it had arrested four people suspected to be linked to a foreign intelligence operation that carried out sabotage and was searching for two others. Lithuania’s prosecutor general Nida Grunskiene on Tuesday said that there were an unspecified number of people detained in several countries, offering no elaboration. The events come as Western officials say
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
RSS