J-10
02-12-2005, 12:11 PM
North Korea Plays for Hard Bargain with Nuke Boast
Sat Feb 12, 4:30 AM ET
By Jon Herskovitz
SEOUL (*******) - North Korea has taken a calculated bargaining risk by announcing for the first time it has nuclear weapons, a South Korean official said Saturday, after the United States rejected North Korean calls for one-on-one talks.
Pyongyang's announcement Thursday that it had nuclear weapons and was pulling out of six-party talks aimed at curbing its atomic ambitions presents a major challenge to South Korea, its main ally, the United States, and China, which has played a lead role in the disarmament effort.
Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said after discussions with the North Korean and Chinese envoys in Canberra that he saw a reasonable chance that Pyongyang would return to the talks. South Korean Vice Foreign Minister Lee Tae-shik said it was significant that the North had not declared outright it would not return to the negotiating table.
"It seems like North Korea was trying to raise interest and the stakes," Lee was quoted as saying by Yonhap news agency.
"North Korea's statement said it had stopped participating in six-way talks because conditions were not ripe. That indicated there was room for interpretation."
North Korean media declared Saturday that the United States wanted to invade North Korea to dominate Asia but conservative South Korean dailies said Seoul must not back down to Pyongyang.
CRITICAL TIME
World leaders have warned Pyongyang against upping the ante with its nuclear boast and tried to play down its significance, saying that it merely confirmed what they already knew.
But the development comes at a critical time for President Bush at the start of his second term, and who also faces confrontation with Iran over its nuclear ambitions.
Secretary of State Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is to discuss North Korea with Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing in the coming days and South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon is already in Washington for talks.
Australia is seeking to mediate in the face-off between Pyongyang and Washington.
"I think there's a reasonable chance that North Korea will participate in the six-party talks," Downer told reporters in Adelaide Saturday.
"I thought it was important that China, as well as the United States and others, played a significant role in getting these negotiations going again, and she (the Chinese ambassador) expressed some cautious optimism that the talks would resume."
South Korea, still technically at war with its impoverished neighbor half a century after the Korean War ended with an inconclusive truce, has tried to improve relations through economic and humanitarian assistance.
Nevertheless, it lives under constant threat from a state that masses 70 percent of its 1.2-million-strong army along a border that passes just 65 km (40 miles) north of Seoul.
HOSTILE POLICY
North Korea declared Thursday that it had acquired nuclear weapons to boost its defenses in the face of U.S. hostility and what it called a White House goal of regime change.
A North Korean diplomat at the United Nations said in an interview published on Friday: "If the United States wants to talk to us directly, it can be seen as a sign of a change in the U.S. hostile policy toward North Korea."
But White House spokesman Scott McClellan insisted Bush would stick to the six-nation format in which the United States, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia negotiate with North Korea.
Countries around the globe have urged North Korea to return to negotiations, which stalled last year after three rounds.
"All of North Korea's neighbors in the region recognize that this is a regional problem and it requires a multilateral approach for resolving it," McClellan said.
But U.S. officials held open the possibility of direct talks with Pyongyang within the multilateral process.
China, which has taken the lead in promoting the talks, now faces its toughest diplomatic challenge. It must choose between putting pressure on its unruly neighbor or watch three years of diplomacy vanish in a cloud of angry rhetoric.
Keeping up its propaganda offensive, North Korea accused Washington Saturday of invading independent countries to achieve global dominance.
"It is an invariable ambition of the U.S. to invade the DPRK (North Korea) and dominate Asia with the Korean Peninsula as a springboard, and establish a global order of its domination," the ruling party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, said.
"The U.S. talk about peace and human rights is nothing but a slogan for invading and dominating other countries and a subterfuge to cover up its criminal nature."
The crisis over the North's nuclear ambitions erupted in 2002 when the United States said North Korea had acknowledged it had a secret program based on highly enriched uranium in addition to a plutonium scheme it had put on hold. Pyongyang has denied having a uranium project. (Additional reporting by Kim Yeon-hee in Seoul, Irwin Arieff at the United Nations and Arshad Mohammed in Washington)
From (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=574&ncid=721&e=2&u=/nm/20050212/wl_nm/korea_north_dc)
Sat Feb 12, 4:30 AM ET
By Jon Herskovitz
SEOUL (*******) - North Korea has taken a calculated bargaining risk by announcing for the first time it has nuclear weapons, a South Korean official said Saturday, after the United States rejected North Korean calls for one-on-one talks.
Pyongyang's announcement Thursday that it had nuclear weapons and was pulling out of six-party talks aimed at curbing its atomic ambitions presents a major challenge to South Korea, its main ally, the United States, and China, which has played a lead role in the disarmament effort.
Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said after discussions with the North Korean and Chinese envoys in Canberra that he saw a reasonable chance that Pyongyang would return to the talks. South Korean Vice Foreign Minister Lee Tae-shik said it was significant that the North had not declared outright it would not return to the negotiating table.
"It seems like North Korea was trying to raise interest and the stakes," Lee was quoted as saying by Yonhap news agency.
"North Korea's statement said it had stopped participating in six-way talks because conditions were not ripe. That indicated there was room for interpretation."
North Korean media declared Saturday that the United States wanted to invade North Korea to dominate Asia but conservative South Korean dailies said Seoul must not back down to Pyongyang.
CRITICAL TIME
World leaders have warned Pyongyang against upping the ante with its nuclear boast and tried to play down its significance, saying that it merely confirmed what they already knew.
But the development comes at a critical time for President Bush at the start of his second term, and who also faces confrontation with Iran over its nuclear ambitions.
Secretary of State Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is to discuss North Korea with Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing in the coming days and South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon is already in Washington for talks.
Australia is seeking to mediate in the face-off between Pyongyang and Washington.
"I think there's a reasonable chance that North Korea will participate in the six-party talks," Downer told reporters in Adelaide Saturday.
"I thought it was important that China, as well as the United States and others, played a significant role in getting these negotiations going again, and she (the Chinese ambassador) expressed some cautious optimism that the talks would resume."
South Korea, still technically at war with its impoverished neighbor half a century after the Korean War ended with an inconclusive truce, has tried to improve relations through economic and humanitarian assistance.
Nevertheless, it lives under constant threat from a state that masses 70 percent of its 1.2-million-strong army along a border that passes just 65 km (40 miles) north of Seoul.
HOSTILE POLICY
North Korea declared Thursday that it had acquired nuclear weapons to boost its defenses in the face of U.S. hostility and what it called a White House goal of regime change.
A North Korean diplomat at the United Nations said in an interview published on Friday: "If the United States wants to talk to us directly, it can be seen as a sign of a change in the U.S. hostile policy toward North Korea."
But White House spokesman Scott McClellan insisted Bush would stick to the six-nation format in which the United States, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia negotiate with North Korea.
Countries around the globe have urged North Korea to return to negotiations, which stalled last year after three rounds.
"All of North Korea's neighbors in the region recognize that this is a regional problem and it requires a multilateral approach for resolving it," McClellan said.
But U.S. officials held open the possibility of direct talks with Pyongyang within the multilateral process.
China, which has taken the lead in promoting the talks, now faces its toughest diplomatic challenge. It must choose between putting pressure on its unruly neighbor or watch three years of diplomacy vanish in a cloud of angry rhetoric.
Keeping up its propaganda offensive, North Korea accused Washington Saturday of invading independent countries to achieve global dominance.
"It is an invariable ambition of the U.S. to invade the DPRK (North Korea) and dominate Asia with the Korean Peninsula as a springboard, and establish a global order of its domination," the ruling party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, said.
"The U.S. talk about peace and human rights is nothing but a slogan for invading and dominating other countries and a subterfuge to cover up its criminal nature."
The crisis over the North's nuclear ambitions erupted in 2002 when the United States said North Korea had acknowledged it had a secret program based on highly enriched uranium in addition to a plutonium scheme it had put on hold. Pyongyang has denied having a uranium project. (Additional reporting by Kim Yeon-hee in Seoul, Irwin Arieff at the United Nations and Arshad Mohammed in Washington)
From (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=574&ncid=721&e=2&u=/nm/20050212/wl_nm/korea_north_dc)