North and South Korea, the US, Japan, Russia and China began working-level talks yesterday to lay the foundation for a third round of the complex discussions on the North Korean nuclear crisis.
Officials from several parties involved have cautioned that scant progress can be expected at the third round of senior-level talks to be held in Beijing from Wednesday to Saturday to try to end a 20-month standoff between Washington and Pyongyang over North Korea's nuclear ambitions.
PHOTO: AP
Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing (
Asked if he expected more progress than at the previous two rounds, Li said: "Yes."
"I hope we will make progress. We hope the peninsula will be nuclear free and enjoy peace and stability," Li told reporters on the sidelines of an Asian diplomatic forum in the eastern Chinese port of Qingdao.
The talks should be held in a "pragmatic, relaxed atmosphere," he said.
The crisis erupted in October 2002, when US officials said North Korea had disclosed it was working on a secret program to enrich uranium for weapons, in violation of an international agreement.
North Korea denies it had a uranium enrichment program, but early last year it threw out UN nuclear inspectors, withdrew from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and restarted a mothballed nuclear reactor from which weapons-grade plutonium can be extracted.
"Various parties' political willingness, diplomatic wisdom, patience in negotiations and ability to compromise will go through a rigorous test," the People's Daily, the mouthpiece of China's Communist Party, said in a commentary at the start of the two days of working talks.
"Historical grievances that have piled up, conflict of practical interests, different security strategies in addition to the US elections have decided that a fundamental resolution to the Korean peninsula nuclear issue will be a long and difficult process, and reversals may even appear," the newspaper said.
China has said expectations should not be too high from these talks, and many analysts have said North Korea may be waiting for the outcome of the US presidential elections in November before deciding whether to take part in serious bargaining.
China, one of the few friends of isolated communist North Korea, has said that what it called Pyong-yang's reasonable demands should be given emphasis and resolved.
The US side is demanding the complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantling of North Korea's nuclear programs.
North Korea said yesterday the US was chiefly to blame for the standoff.
"It is the US which reneged on its international obligation and wantonly violated the NPT," the North's KCNA news agency said, quoting the Rodong Sinmun newspaper.
"For a fair solution to the nuclear issue between the DPRK and the US the countries concerned should demand the US drop at once its hostile policy toward the DPRK," it said.
DPRK, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, is the official name for North Korea.
Japanese media said on Saturday that Tokyo would offer energy assistance to North Korea, in need of aid for its struggling economy, at the talks but only if the communist state freezes its nuclear programs.
KINGPIN: Marset allegedly laundered the proceeds of his drug enterprise by purchasing and sponsoring professional soccer teams and even put himself in the starting lineups Notorious Latin American narco trafficker Sebastian Marset, who eluded police for years, was handed over to US authorities after his arrest on Friday in Bolivia. Marset, a Uruguayan national who was on the US most-wanted list, was passed to agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration at Santa Cruz airport in Bolivia, then put on a US airplane, Bolivian state television showed. “The arrest and deportation were carried out pursuant to a court order issued by the US justice system,” Bolivian Minister of Government Marco Antonio Oviedo told reporters. The alleged kingpin was arrested in an upscale neighborhood of Santa
FAKE NEWS? ‘When the government demands the press become a state mouthpiece under the threat of punishment, something has gone very wrong,’ a civic group said The top US broadcast regulator on Saturday threatened media outlets over negative coverage of the Middle East war, after US President Donald Trump slammed critical headlines from the “Fake News Media.” The US president since his first term has derided mainstream media as “fake news” and has sued major outlets over what he sees as unfair coverage. Brendan Carr, head of the US Federal Communications Commission — which oversees the nation’s radio, television and Internet media — said broadcasters risked losing their licenses over news coverage. “The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will
SCANDAL: Other images discovered earlier show Andrew bent over a female and lying across the laps of a number of women, while Mandelson is pictured in his underpants A photograph of former British prince Andrew and veteran politician Peter Mandelson sitting in bathrobes alongside late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was unearthed on Friday in previously published documents. The image is believed to be the first known photograph of the two men with Epstein. They are currently engulfed in scandal in the UK over their ties to their mutual friend. The undated photograph, first reported by ITV News, shows King Charles III’s disgraced brother and former British ambassador to the US sitting barefoot outside on a wooden deck. They appear to have mugs with a US flag on them
INFLUTENTIAL THEORIST: Habermas was particularly critical of the ‘limited interest’ shown by German politicians in ‘shaping a politically effective Europe Jurgen Habermas, whose work on communication, rationality and sociology made him one of the world’s most influential philosophers and a key intellectual figure in his native Germany, has died. He was 96. Habermas’ publisher, Suhrkamp, said he died on Saturday in Starnberg, near Munich. Habermas frequently weighed in on political matters over several decades. His extensive writing crossed the boundaries of academic and philosophical disciplines, providing a vision of modern society and social interaction. His best-known works included the two-volume Theory of Communicative Action. Habermas, who was 15 at the time of Nazi Germany’s defeat, later recalled the dawn of
RSS