North Korea said yesterday that it would work with the US to resolve unspecified differences remaining after rare high-level talks with US President Barack Obama’s envoy aimed at restarting international nuclear negotiations.
It was the North’s first reaction to three days of talks with special envoy Stephen Bosworth, who arrived in Beijing yesterday to brief Chinese officials.
North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said it understands the need to resume the six-nation nuclear talks that Pyongyang walked away from earlier this year before conducting its second-ever nuclear test.
Bosworth said after leaving North Korea on Thursday that the two sides reached a “common understanding” on the need to restart the nuclear negotiations.
In Beijing, Bosworth was to meet Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi (楊潔箎) and Beijing’s nuclear envoy, Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei (武大偉), a ministry spokeswoman said.
Though North Korea stopped short of making a firm commitment to return to the negotiating table, its reaction was positive and raised hopes that the stalled disarmament process could resume.
Its Foreign Ministry said the meetings with the US “deepened the mutual understanding, narrowed their differences and found not a few common points.”
The two sides “also reached a series of common understandings of the need to resume the six-party talks and the importance of implementing” a 2005 disarmament pact, it said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.
“Both sides agreed to continue to cooperate with each other in the future to narrow down the remaining differences,” it said, without elaborating on the remaining differences.
The 2005 pact calls for North Korea to end its nuclear programs in exchange for economic aid, security assurances and diplomatic recognition.
In Washington, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said for a “preliminary meeting, it was quite positive.”
Bosworth’s trip marked the Obama administration’s first high-level talks with North Korea.
He met with First Vice Foreign Minister Kang Sok-ju, leader Kim Jong-il’s top foreign policy brain, as well as North Korea’s chief nuclear envoy, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan. The visit did not include a meeting with Kim Jong-il.
North Korea said the two sides “had a long exhaustive and candid discussion on wide-ranging issues” including denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula, forging a peace treaty, improving bilateral relations and economic and energy assistance.
Analysts said it was too early to call Bosworth’s mission a success. Lee Sang-hyun of the Sejong Institute, a private security think tank outside Seoul, predicted a “tug of war” over when North Korea should rejoin the talks.
Meanwhile, the Tokyo-based Choson Sinbo, considered a mouthpiece for Pyongyang, reported yesterday that the North would not rejoin any multilateral nuclear talks without assurances of an end to “hostile relations between North Korea and the US.”
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique