Australia's foreign minister pressed leaders in North Korea yesterday to remain involved in six-nation talks on its nuclear program, amid concerns that the Pyongyang administration might pull out of preparatory meetings for the next round of negotiations.
"I'd been, on arriving here, concerned that the six-party talks process was stalling, and I hoped that we'd been able to add some substantial momentum to that process," Alexander Downer said, according to Australian pool video of his visit received by Associated Press Television News.
Downer, who arrived in North Korea on Tuesday, met with the country's ceremonial head of state Kim Yong Nam and Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun.
The US, Russia, China, Japan and the two Koreas had agreed in June to hold the next round of nuclear talks in Beijing before the end of next month.
Washington has also called for working meetings to prepare for those talks, but North Korea said on Monday that it wouldn't attend those lower-level meetings -- complaining the US wasn't interested in "making the dialogue fruitful."
In Seoul, South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon said yesterday that efforts were being made to still hold the working talks, but participants had yet to reach an agreement.
"Our government believes that the main talks should open before the end of September, and we expect it to be opened and will make necessary preparations," he said.
China, which hosts the six-party talks, also yesterday appealed to North Korea to join the working meetings.
"We hope that all sides will maintain a calm, practical and flexible attitude, appropriately handle these disagreements and continue to push forward the peace talks process with great strides," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said.
At the latest nuclear talks in June, North Korea offered to freeze its nuclear program in exchange for energy, lifting of US economic sanctions and removal from Washington's list of countries that sponsor terrorism.
It said the freeze would be a step toward eventual dismantling of the program.
The US proposal required the North to go further by disclosing all its nuclear activities, helping to dismantle facilities and allowing outside monitoring.
Under the plan, some benefits would be withheld to ensure the North cooperates.
The nuclear dispute flared up in 2002 when US officials said North Korea had admitted that it was running a secret nuclear program in violation of international agreements.
‘TERRORIST ATTACK’: The convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri resulted in the ‘martyrdom of five of our armed forces,’ the Presidential Leadership Council said A blast targeting the convoy of a Saudi Arabian-backed armed group killed five in Yemen’s southern city of Aden and injured the commander of the government-allied unit, officials said on Wednesday. “The treacherous terrorist attack targeting the convoy of Brigadier General Hamdi Shukri, commander of the Second Giants Brigade, resulted in the martyrdom of five of our armed forces heroes and the injury of three others,” Yemen’s Saudi Arabia-backed Presidential Leadership Council said in a statement published by Yemeni news agency Saba. A security source told reporters that a car bomb on the side of the road in the Ja’awla area in
‘SHOCK TACTIC’: The dismissal of Yang mirrors past cases such as Jang Song-thaek, Kim’s uncle, who was executed after being accused of plotting to overthrow his nephew North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has fired his vice premier, compared him to a goat and railed against “incompetent” officials, state media reported yesterday, in a rare and very public broadside against apparatchiks at the opening of a critical factory. Vice Premier Yang Sung-ho was sacked “on the spot,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency said, in a speech in which Kim attacked “irresponsible, rude and incompetent leading officials.” “Please, comrade vice premier, resign by yourself when you can do it on your own before it is too late,” Kim reportedly said. “He is ineligible for an important duty. Put simply, it was
SCAM CLAMPDOWN: About 130 South Korean scam suspects have been sent home since October last year, and 60 more are still waiting for repatriation Dozens of South Koreans allegedly involved in online scams in Cambodia were yesterday returned to South Korea to face investigations in what was the largest group repatriation of Korean criminal suspects from abroad. The 73 South Korean suspects allegedly scammed fellow Koreans out of 48.6 billion won (US$33 million), South Korea said. Upon arrival in South Korea’s Incheon International Airport aboard a chartered plane, the suspects — 65 men and eight women — were sent to police stations. Local TV footage showed the suspects, in handcuffs and wearing masks, being escorted by police officers and boarding buses. They were among about 260 South
A former flight attendant for a Canadian airline posed as a commercial pilot and as a current flight attendant to obtain hundreds of free flights from US airlines, authorities said on Tuesday. Dallas Pokornik, 33, of Toronto, was arrested in Panama after being indicted on wire fraud charges in US federal court in Hawaii in October last year. He pleaded not guilty on Tuesday following his extradition to the US. Pokornik was a flight attendant for a Toronto-based airline from 2017 to 2019, then used fake employee identification from that carrier to obtain tickets reserved for pilots and flight attendants on three other
RSS