North Korea yesterday spurned appeals to join talks on its nuclear and missile programs, and the US and other regional powers went ahead with a meeting on Asian security without the isolated communist nation.
With little sign of diplomatic progress on North Korea, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice worked on ways to craft a solution to the Middle East conflict. Rice also tried to assuage concerns of Muslim nations in Asia over the conflict in Lebanon.
"We want to see as early an end to the conflict as possible because the Middle East is a region that has had too many spasms of violence," she said.
North Korea has said the US should drop financial sanctions before any negotiations occur.
"We believe if the US earnestly wants dialogue, it can do this," North Korean spokesman Chong Song-il said.
Chong had harsh words for the UN, which barred member states from dealing with North Korea in material or technology for missiles or weapons of mass destruction.
"It's brigandish for the UN Security Council to take issue with this," said Chong, who described the North's missile tests as a defensive measure.
North Korean Foreign Minister, Paek Nam-sun told delegates to the ASEAN Regional Forum that his country might pull out of the security conference if it condemned North Korean actions, according to diplomats.
However, Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing (李肇星) downplayed the separate meeting in an indication that it was more of a show of unity rather than a hard negotiating session. Li had said it would be like a "tea party."
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