North Korea sounded an upbeat note yesterday on the eve of six-party talks aimed at resolving the crisis over its weapons programs but stuck firmly to its demand for compensation before any possible nuclear freeze.
Analysts have held out scant hope of a breakthrough at the talks starting today, citing Pyongyang's denials it is enriching uranium as well as lack of trust between the two protagonists -- the US and North Korea -- in ending a dispute that has stoked regional tensions since late 2002.
PHOTO: AFP
"The circumstances of the talks are better than the previous one, and we hope that we can cooperate closely with China and Russia," Deputy Foreign Minister Kim Gye-gwan was quoted by China's Xinhua news agency as saying as he left Pyongyang.
"We appreciate the efforts done by the Chinese side. We will do our best to make [a] good result at the talks," Kim was quoted as telling the Chinese ambassador.
But Kim made clear Pyongyang expected something in return for any concessions, and the Foreign Ministry issued a typically tough statement of the kind Pyongyang has long used to try to strengthen its position when it sees it may have to compromise.
"Only as long as the issue of compensation is completely resolved will the North Korean freeze plan be realized," Xinhua quoted the North Korean Foreign Ministry as saying.
"If this round of talks proposes a `freeze first, compensate later,' North Korea will resolutely oppose it."
The talks follow six months of shuttle diplomacy after a first round in Beijing last August failed to narrow the gulf over Pyongyang's atomic arms ambitions.
In a sign Pyongyang may be ready to soften its stance, North Korean diplomats held informal talks this month in Vienna with officials from the UN nuclear watchdog on a possible resumption of inspections of the country's nuclear complex at Yongbyon, Japan's Kyodo news agency reported yesterday.
Kyodo said it was the first substantial contact between North Korea and the International Atomic Energy Agency since inspectors were kicked out of the reclusive communist country in December 2002.
Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi offered another ray of optimism, telling a parliamentary panel yesterday that Pyongyang had told China that the offer to freeze its weapons program included the suspected uranium program.
US officials and arms control experts say it would be meaningless to exclude the uranium program from efforts to disarm North Korea because, unlike the reactor-centered production of plutonium, uranium enrichment can be hidden.
Washington, Tokyo and Seoul have made clear to Pyongyang that the talks must cover both schemes.
North Korea denies it has a program for enriching uranium to make bomb fuel.
It dismissed Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan's recent confession that he had sold uranium-linked nuclear secrets to North Korea and other states as a "whopping lie" spun by the US.
The US, which says the North may already have one or two atomic bombs, says Pyongyang officials acknowledged having such a program in 2002 when confronted with US evidence and only later denied it in the face of international criticism.
It wants the North to commit to the "complete, irreversible and verifiable" scrapping of its atomic programs.
"Our position has not changed," a White House spokesman said. "We look forward to the six-party talks, and we want a North Korean Peninsula that renounces its nuclear weapons program in a verifiable and irreversible way."
North Korea, branded by Washington as part of an "axis of evil" with Iran and pre-war Iraq, recently offered to freeze its nuclear activities in return for diplomatic concessions and aid as a first step towards a resolution of the dispute.
On Monday, South Korea put forward a united front with the US and Japan, saying the three countries aimed to persuade the North to accept a joint statement pledging to dismantle its nuclear programs, set up a working group to regularize talks and agree to a date for a third round.
China and Russia also said they had reached a separate consensus on tackling the crisis.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion