North Korea yesterday demanded compensation from the US for freezing its nuclear-weapons programs as a first step in resolving a 15-month standoff, as preparations got underway for critical nuclear negotiations later this month in Beijing.
The comments came during high-level talks in Seoul between North and South Korean officials.
"The United States has not at all changed its demand that we first give up our nuclear programs," the North's chief negotiator Kim Ryong Song said, according to pool reports.
"What is important is resolving the issue through our proposal of simultaneous action."
A South Korean delegate at the Cabinet-level inter-Korean talks in Seoul said North Korea's offers didn't go far enough and asked North Korea to be more flexible.
"We urged North Korea to take a more progressive position on the dismantlement of the nuclear programs in general because it will be difficult to resolve the nuclear issue in the near future just with North Korea's offer of a freeze in exchange for compensation," delegate Shin Eon-sang said during a break in the meetings.
Outside the venue, Seoul's Shilla Hotel, about 20 South Korean protesters shouted slogans such as "Stop all South-North Korean exchanges until North Korea dismantles its nuclear programs!" One banner read: "We call on the international community to work to topple the dictatorship of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il."
About 50 police officers were on hand, but no clashes were reported.
Six-nations talks on settling the issue had faltered for months over disagreements on the ground rules for negotiations. A first round between the US, China, Russia, Japan and the two Koreas ended in August in Beijing without much progress.
North Korea agreed Tuesday to hold a second round Feb. 25.
North Korea has insisted it needs a nuclear "deterrent" against a possible US attack. But it has said it would suspend its nuclear programs as a first step in easing tensions if Washington lifts sanctions, resumes oil shipments and removes North Korea from its list of countries sponsoring terrorism.
DISASTER: The Bangladesh Meteorological Department recorded a magnitude 5.7 and tremors reached as far as Kolkata, India, more than 300km away from the epicenter A powerful earthquake struck Bangladesh yesterday outside the crowded capital, Dhaka, killing at least five people and injuring about a hundred, the government said. The magnitude 5.5 quake struck at 10:38am near Narsingdi, Bangladesh, about 33km from Dhaka, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said. The earthquake sparked fear and chaos with many in the Muslim-majority nation of 170 million people at home on their day off. AFP reporters in Dhaka said they saw people weeping in the streets while others appeared shocked. Bangladesh Interim Leader Muhammad Yunus expressed his “deep shock and sorrow over the news of casualties in various districts.” At least five people,
LEFT AND RIGHT: Battling anti-incumbent, anticommunist sentiment, Jeanette Jara had a precarious lead over far-right Jose Antonio Kast as they look to the Dec. 14 run Leftist candidate Jeannette Jara and far-right leader Jose Antonio Kast are to go head-to-head in Chile’s presidential runoff after topping Sunday’s first round of voting in an election dominated by fears of violent crime. With 99 percent of the results counted, Jara, a 51-year-old communist running on behalf of an eight-party coalition, won 26.85 percent, compared with 23.93 percent for Kast, the Servel electoral service said. The election was dominated by deep concern over a surge in murders, kidnappings and extortion widely blamed on foreign crime gangs. Kast, 59, has vowed to build walls, fences and trenches along Chile’s border with Bolivia to
DEATH SENTENCE: The ousted leader said she was willing to attend a fresh trial outside Bangladesh where the ruling would not be a ‘foregone conclusion’ Bangladesh’s fugitive former prime minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday called the guilty verdict and death sentence in her crimes against humanity trial “biased and politically motivated.” Hasina, 78, defied court orders that she return from India to attend her trial about whether she ordered a deadly crackdown against the student-led uprising that ousted her. She was found guilty and sentenced to death earlier yesterday. “The verdicts announced against me have been made by a rigged tribunal established and presided over by an unelected government with no democratic mandate,” Hasina said in a statement issued from hiding in India. “They are biased and politically motivated,” she
It is one of the world’s most famous unsolved codes whose answer could sell for a fortune — but two US friends say they have already found the secret hidden by Kryptos. The S-shaped copper sculpture has baffled cryptography enthusiasts since its 1990 installation on the grounds of the CIA headquarters in Virginia, with three of its four messages deciphered so far. Yet K4, the final passage, has kept codebreakers scratching their heads. Sculptor Jim Sanborn, 80, has been so overwhelmed by guesses that he started charging US$50 for each response. Sanborn in August announced he would auction the 97-character solution to K4
RSS