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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| Norks continue to seethe and pout |
| 2005-04-06 |
| The United States has no indication North Korea is ready to return to six-country nuclear talks despite a published report that it had agreed to do so, a State Department official said on Wednesday. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity after consulting with top policymakers, told Reuters: "We don't have any indication that the North Koreans are ready to come back to the talks. We haven't heard that they are ready to go back to the talks yet." The Japanese daily Yomiuri Shimbun said on Wednesday that the North had apparently agreed to an early resumption of the talks on its nuclear arms program as early as mid-May in return for the promise of a visit to Pyongyang by China's president. The newspaper quoted as its source an unidentified U.S. official in Washington and said the deal was reached during a visit by North Korea's First Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs Kang Sok-ju to Beijing that ended on Tuesday. The State Department official told Reuters the administration had a preliminary discussion with the Chinese about Kang's trip but "no full read-out." President Hu Jintao has not visited the reclusive state since assuming the top post of the Chinese Communist Party in November 2002. He is likely to make his first trip to Pyongyang by June, the Yomiuri report said. China, North Korea's main benefactor, has hosted three rounds of the six-way talks aimed at eliminating the North's nuclear weapons program but the last round was in June. The talks, involving the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, Russia and China, have made little headway. North Korea declared on Feb. 10 it had nuclear weapons and said it was withdrawing from the talks, vowing not to return until Washington dropped what it called its "hostile policy." Pyongyang also wants the talks to address the threat it says it is facing from U.S. nuclear weapons. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |