US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton named a special envoy for North Korea yesterday, but warned the communist nation that ties with the US would not improve unless it stops threatening South Korea.
Amid a rise in belligerent rhetoric from the North toward the South and signs it may be getting ready to test-fire a ballistic missile, she urged Pyongyang to halt “provocative and unhelpful” gestures and rejoin stalled six-nation nuclear disarmament talks.
“North Korea is not going to get a different relationship with the United States while insulting and refusing dialogue with [South Korea],” Clinton told reporters at a news conference with South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan. “We are calling on the government of North Korea to refrain from being provocative and unhelpful in a war of words that it has been engaged in because that is not very fruitful.”
Clinton, who also received a military briefing on the situation along the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea and discussed broader issues, such as climate change and the global economic crisis with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and Prime Minister Han Seung-soo, praised Seoul for its democracy and prosperity.
She said that was “in stark contrast to the tyranny and poverty across the border to the North” and commended the “people of South Korea and your leaders for your calm, resolve and determination in the face of provocative and unhelpful statements and actions by the North.”
She declined to comment on intelligence suggesting the North could soon fire a missile, but noted such an act would violate UN Security Council Resolution 1718, which was passed after Pyongyang detonated a nuclear device in 2006.
“The North should refrain from violating this resolution and also from any and all provocative actions that could harm the six-party talks and aggravate the tensions in the region,” Clinton said.
She demanded that the North follow through on promises it made to dismantle and verifiably disable its nuclear weapons program during negotiations with China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the US last year, saying Washington is not willing to engage with Pyongyang until it does so.
Only then would the Obama administration be willing to normalize ties and negotiate a peace treaty, she said later in a speech to students at Ewha University.
“I make the offer again here in Seoul,” Clinton said. “If North Korea is genuinely prepared to completely and verifiably eliminate nuclear weapons, the Obama Administration will be willing to normalize bilateral relations, replace the peninsula’s long-standing armistice agreement with a permanent peace treaty and assist immediately the energy and other economic and humanitarian needs of the Korean people.”
Earlier, Clinton said the new US special representative to North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, a former US ambassador to South Korea, would work with South Korea, Japan, China and others to look at ways to get Pyongyang back to the negotiating table and deal with broader policy.
Bosworth will also deal with North Korean human rights and humanitarian issues, she said, praising him as “a capable and experienced diplomat” who will report to her and US President Barack Obama.
En route to South Korea from Indonesia on Thursday on her first overseas trip as the US’ top diplomat, Clinton surprised reporters traveling with her when she spoke candidly about a possible succession crisis in North Korea and its impact on restarting the talks.
Those comments marked a rare, if not unprecedented, instance of a senior US official publicly discussing such a diplomatically sensitive matter.
Yesterday in Seoul, Clinton again acknowledged concerns over a potential power struggle to replace ailing North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, but she stressed that the US was still addressing its concerns to the existing government.
“As we look at planning and contingency planning, we’re taking everything into account, but we feel there is a government in place right now and that government is being asked to re-engage with the six-party talks, to fulfill the obligations that they have agreed to,” she said.
Meanwhile, Seoul’s defense minister warned yesterday that South Korea would target North Korean launch sites if its ships came under missile attack in the Yellow Sea.
But he said Seoul would try to avoid a full-blown war by launching a brief and limited counterattack.
“We would take preventive measures if a missile attack were launched by the enemy and the [North Korean] locations where a missile originates must be attacked because of its an obvious act of aggression,” Lee Sang-hee told parliament.
Lee made his remarks after a ruling party lawmaker asked how the military would respond if North Korea attacked one of its vessels in the area.
He has previously said a limited naval clash may break out around the disputed border in the Yellow Sea, known as the Northern Limit Line.
The North refuses to recognize the border drawn after the 1950 to 1953 Korean War, saying it should run further south.
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
OPTIMISTIC: A Philippine Air Force spokeswoman said the military believed the crew were safe and were hopeful that they and the jet would be recovered A Philippine Air Force FA-50 jet and its two-person crew are missing after flying in support of ground forces fighting communist rebels in the southern Mindanao region, a military official said yesterday. Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo said the jet was flying “over land” on the way to its target area when it went missing during a “tactical night operation in support of our ground troops.” While she declined to provide mission specifics, Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala confirmed that the missing FA-50 was part of a squadron sent “to provide air support” to troops fighting communist rebels in
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
RSS