North Korea's offer to freeze its nuclear arms programs would be acceptable to South Korea and its allies only if it were an initial step toward dismantling all atomic facilities, Seoul's foreign minister said yesterday.
Ban Ki-moon said South Korea, the US and other parties to the nuclear talks set to resume this month would reciprocate with "corresponding measures" if the communist North made clear that its proposed freeze was a short-term measure.
"A freeze itself is not enough," Ban said, referring to a proposal made by North Korea in December.
"But if we can confirm that North Korea will pledge that the freeze is the short-term measure in the process of ultimately dismantling the nuclear programs, and if that can be verified , then I believe that there will be corresponding measures," he said in a lecture to senior South Korean journalists in Seoul.
North Korea agreed on Tuesday to attend a second round of multiparty negotiations on the nuclear impasse from Feb. 25 in Beijing. The six-party talks group both Koreas, the US, China, Japan and Russia.
Pyongyang proposed in December an initial package deal in which it would freeze its "nuclear activities" in exchange for security guarantees and energy and economic assistance from the US and other powers.
The US also wants North Korea to commit to dismantling any nuclear arms programs. Washington has offered then to lay out in detail how it could guarantee not to attack the state US President George W. Bush has called part of an "axis of evil" with Iran and pre-war Iraq.
The six countries met in Beijing last August but failed to go beyond stating their respective positions in a dispute that flared up in October, 2002 when US officials said North Korea had admitted to operating a covert nuclear weapons program.
Amid preparations for the next round of talks, China's UN ambassador said on Wednesday the six countries may set up a panel of junior diplomats to keep the lines of communication open between high-level negotiations.
Ambassador Wang Guangya told a news conference he hoped North Korea would accept the idea of a mechanism to maintain contact among the parties. South Korean officials have endorsed the goal of setting up a working group for technical issues and details.
During a Cabinet-level meeting running through Friday in Seoul, South Korean Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun urged the North to commit to a complete dismantling of its nuclear programs during the six-nation meeting.
Outside Seoul's Shilla Hotel, the venue of Cabinet-level talks, 20 South Korean protesters shouted slogans such as ``Stop all South-North Korean exchanges until North Korea dismantles its nuclear programs!''
Shamans in Peru on Monday gathered for an annual New Year’s ritual where they made predictions for the year to come, including illness for US President Donald Trump and the downfall of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. “The United States should prepare itself because Donald Trump will fall seriously ill,” Juan de Dios Garcia proclaimed as he gathered with other shamans on a beach in southern Lima, dressed in traditional Andean ponchos and headdresses, and sprinkling flowers on the sand. The shamans carried large posters of world leaders, over which they crossed swords and burned incense, some of which they stomped on. In this
Indonesia yesterday began enforcing its newly ratified penal code, replacing a Dutch-era criminal law that had governed the country for more than 80 years and marking a major shift in its legal landscape. Since proclaiming independence in 1945, the Southeast Asian country had continued to operate under a colonial framework widely criticized as outdated and misaligned with Indonesia’s social values. Efforts to revise the code stalled for decades as lawmakers debated how to balance human rights, religious norms and local traditions in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation. The 345-page Indonesian Penal Code, known as the KUHP, was passed in 2022. It
Near the entrance to the Panama Canal, a monument to China’s contributions to the interoceanic waterway was torn down on Saturday night by order of local authorities. The move comes as US President Donald Trump has made threats in the past few months to retake control of the canal, claiming Beijing has too much influence in its operations. In a surprising move that has been criticized by leaders in Panama and China, the mayor’s office of the locality of Arraijan ordered the demolition of the monument built in 2004 to symbolize friendship between the countries. The mayor’s office said in
‘TRUMP’S LONG GAME’: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said that while fraud was a serious issue, the US president was politicizing it to defund programs for Minnesotans US President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday said it was auditing immigration cases involving US citizens of Somalian origin to detect fraud that could lead to denaturalization, or revocation of citizenship, while also announcing a freeze of childcare funds to Minnesota and demanding an audit of some daycare centers. “Under US law, if an individual procures citizenship on a fraudulent basis, that is grounds for denaturalization,” US Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. Denaturalization cases are rare and can take years. About 11 cases were pursued per year between 1990 and 2017, the Immigrant Legal Resource
RSS