Asian and European foreign ministers urged North Korea yesterday to return to talks on its nuclear arms program "without any further delay" as concerns grew that Pyongyang was preparing for an atomic test.
Nearly a year has passed since a third round of six-country talks on the crisis ended inconclusively in Beijing.
North Korea declared in February that it had nuclear arms and would stay away from the talks indefinitely -- a matter the foreign ministers said was a cause for "deep concern."
"[The ministers] strongly urged the DPRK [North Korea] to return to the negotiating table of the six-party talks without any further delay, and to make a strategic decision so as to achieve the denuclearization of the [Korean] peninsula in a peaceful manner through dialogue," said a chairman's statement issued at the end of a two-day Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM).
ASEM, one of the few international groupings not to include the US, comprises 38 countries.
A third round of nuclear talks among the two Koreas, the US, Japan, Russia and China took place last June.
"Over the past 10 months, the six-party talks have not been held and in the meantime, it is highly likely that nuclear weapons development or missile development has proceeded steadily," Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura told a news conference wrapping up the ASEM gathering.
But a diplomat familiar with the meeting said China was growing irritated at the mounting pressure it faces to persuade Pyongyang.
"It's China's position that it will work on its own initiative, not because of pressure from others," he said.
The Washington Post reported on Saturday that China had rebuffed a request last week by US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill to cut off North Korea's oil supply as a way of pressuring it to return to the talks.
A US defense official in Washington said on Friday that spy satellite images had shown what could be preparations for an underground nuclear test, although he added the warning that this also might be an elaborate ruse by the North.
"We do hope that North Korea will not take such kinds of measures as to test nuclear weapons," South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon told the news conference, adding that it was in the North's interests to abandon its nuclear arms program in return for economic and energy aid and security assurances from participating countries.
Washington has made clear it would consider taking the matter to the UN Security Council -- a prelude to possible sanctions -- if North Korea kept shunning the talks.
Pyongyang has said sanctions would be tantamount to a declaration of war.
Ban agreed international patience was wearing thin, but he said diplomacy could still succeed.
"The room for negotiations is not completely shut down," he said, adding that participants in the talks should "exert their utmost efforts" to bring Pyongyang back to the negotiating table.
US officials have said they believe Pyongyang has already amassed enough fissile material to make six to eight bombs.
also see story:
EU official chides on Myanmar
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
WHAT WAS ALL THAT FOR? Jaw Shaw-kong said that Cheng Li-wen had pushed for more drastic cuts and attacked him, just for the outcome to be nearly identical to his bill The legislature yesterday passed a supplementary budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of US military equipment, with the combined amount of spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.8 billion). The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their legislative majority to pass the bill, which runs until 2033 and has two main funding provisions. One was for NT$300 billion of arms sales already approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, the other was for NT$480 billion for another arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The bill, which fell short of the NT$1.25
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
A former television news host and six military personnel — active and retired — have been indicted on espionage charges, Kaohsiung prosecutors said yesterday. Lin Chen-you (林宸佑), a former CTi News host and YouTuber, last year allegedly made videos at the direction of a Chinese agent criticizing the Democratic Progressive Party’s recall campaign, the Ciaotou District Prosecutors’ Office told a news conference in Kaohsiung. He allegedly received 4,325 tether coins for the videos from an unidentified person surnamed Huang (黃), believed to be an agent of a hostile foreign power, they said. Lin, also known as Ma Te (馬德), has a show named
RSS