North and South Korea pledged yesterday after ministerial talks to work together for the success of multilateral negotiations in late February on ending the beleaguered North's nuclear programs.
The Seoul meeting had been marked by testy exchanges that experts said showed Pyongyang felt increasingly cornered in the world community, especially following revelations this week that a top Pakistani scientist had sold it nuclear technology.
The two Koreas will join the US, China, Russia and Japan in the Chinese capital in a second round of six-party nuclear talks set to begin on Feb. 25.
PHOTO: AP
"South and North agreed to cooperate for a fruitful second round of six-party talks to resolve the nuclear issue peacefully," said a joint statement issued after three days of inter-Korean ministerial talks in Seoul.
The 13th set of Cabinet-level contacts since the capitalist South and communist North began their cautious reconciliation process four years ago began just hours after North Korea announced a long-awaited date for the six-way talks.
But the upbeat mood soon dissipated as the significance of the revelations from Pakistan sank in.
"North Korea is in a difficult situation, in a jam," said Kim Sung-han, a North Korea-US relations expert at the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security.
He said the dramatic confessions by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, had undercut Pyongyang's efforts to deny the existence of a clandestine uranium enrichment program that was the catalyst for the nuclear dispute.
"North Korea definitely feels a difference in temperature now," said Kim after South Korea rebuffed the North Korean delegates' efforts to drive a wedge between Seoul and Washington with well-rehearsed calls for "ethnic cooperation."
The North's chief delegate, Kim Ryong-song, sought to blame the US for the relatively slow pace of inter-Korean economic projects and accused Seoul of colluding with Washington.
"To get drawn into the cooperation against the North is to drive the nation to mutual destruction," Kim said on Wednesday.
South Korean Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun, Kim's counterpart, chided him for creating unnecessary trouble.
"If our relations deteriorate, it will only be damaging to the North," Jeong said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese