South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, sidestepping North Korean scepticism, told his armed forces yesterday he expects a second round of talks on the North's nuclear ambitions to be held and to produce good results.
In Tokyo, US envoy James Kelly said those follow-on talks to August's inconclusive first six-way meeting in Beijing could possibly be in November, although no date had been fixed.
Roh indicated the timetable and agenda could be hardening up after intense diplomacy at the UN and elsewhere on ways to resolve the crisis over North Korea's declared nuclear weapons program -- a crisis that began a year ago this month.
"I expect that the second round of talks will be held in due time and will produce good results," Roh told a military parade at Sungnam airbase outside Seoul.
He also said a decision on whether to send troops to Iraq, as Washington has asked, hinged in part on security on the divided Korean Peninsula, where 37,000 US troops help the 690,000-strong South Korean forces deter the communist North.
"The utmost task now is to resolve the North Korean nuclear problem peacefully," Roh said after reviewing the parade from an open-top limousine. "Without unshakeable security, how can any companies in the world be expected to invest in [South] Korea?"
North Korea said on Tuesday it had not promised to attend more talks with China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the US. The careful wording left open the possibility Pyongyang would show up but made clear it doubted the merits.
Further reinforcing the view among diplomats that movement could come soon, a South Korean newspaper reported a North Korean negotiator as saying expressions of disinterest in fresh talks did not mean Pyongyang would reject them.
South Korean Foreign Minister Yoon Young-kwan told a briefing in Seoul the US was working hard to find ways to ease North Korea's security concerns.
"I don't interpret any such comments [by North Korea] as meaning they will not accept a second round of talks," he said.
In Tokyo, Kelly, who is assistant secretary of state and Washington's pointman on North Korea, said the US and its allies were urging Pyongyang to return to the table soon.
He was holding talks with South Korean and Japanese officials.
Asked if talks might be held in November, he said: "It's a possibility."
South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted Seoul's ambassador to the US, Han Seung-joo, as telling South Korean lawmakers in Washington that he hoped the next talks would take place this month or no later than next month.
At Sungnam airbase outside Seoul, South Korea put on a long parade to mark the 55th anniversary of the armed forces, with aerobatics displays, frogmen dangling from helicopters, armored vehicles trundling past and taekwondo-trained troops smashing tiles.
Roh said defense spending was set to rise 8.1 percent next year, compared with 2.1 percent for the overall budget, but the amount was still insufficient.
Roh said that, as the economy recovered from its first recession in five years, more would be invested.
He said the country should become self-reliant in defense within 10 years.
North Korea has 1.1 million troops, many forward deployed near the Demilitarized Zone bisecting the peninsula.
Self-reliance would not diminish the importance of South Korea's alliance with the US but better reflect Seoul's increased international status as one of the world's strongest economies, Roh said.
On the US request for combat troops to help restore stability to post-war Iraq, Roh did not commit himself but reiterated the linkage with the nuclear crisis.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing