North Korea said yesterday it remains committed to international negotiations on ending its nuclear weapons program, but demanded Japan withdraw from the six-nation talks.
The comment came a day after the communist regime repeated that it would stay away from the stalled talks until the US apologized for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice calling North Korea one of the world's "outposts of tyranny."
International efforts to resume the negotiations gained urgency after North Korea claimed in February that it has nuclear weapons. The talks, which also involve China, Russia and South Korea, have been suspended since June after three rounds of inconclusive meetings.
Yesterday, North Korea said the Japanese government should not be a part of the talks because of what it called Japan's "cunning and vulgar" intention to exploit the process for its self-interest.
"Japan's participation in the six-party talks only complicates the problem more and leads to a failure of coming to a resolution," the North's state-run Minju Joson newspaper said in a commentary carried by the country's official Korean Central News Agency. "There is no longer any need to include Japan in the six-party talks."
It wasn't the first time the North put forward such a demand amid recent tensions over North Korea's abductions of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s.
North Korea has admitted kidnapping about a dozen Japanese to train its spies and allowed five to return, claiming the rest died. But Japanese leaders believe some abductees could still be alive in the North and have rejected Pyongyang's explanations as not credible.
The regime also has blamed the US for the lack of talks.
"As long as we have not totally given up on the six-party talks, they should be preceded by right conditions and circumstances, in other words, the US dropping of its hostile policy," the newspaper commentary said yesterday.
On Friday, Han Song-ryol, deputy chief of North Korea's UN mission, said his government was waiting for an apology from Rice. He dismissed her recent reference to North Korea as a "sovereign" country, saying that "cannot be taken as being equivalent to an apology."
In a lecture at Seoul National University, US Ambassador to South Korea Christopher Hill said the North's setting of conditions "was not helpful."
"Serious problems should not be dealt with ... sarcastic statements," said Hill, who has been named US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs.
Hill urged North Korea to "stop with these silly press announcements," and said they should bring their concerns to the arms talks.
IDENTITY: A sex extortion scandal involving Thai monks has deeply shaken public trust in the clergy, with 11 monks implicated in financial misconduct Reverence for the saffron-robed Buddhist monkhood is deeply woven into Thai society, but a sex extortion scandal has besmirched the clergy and left the devout questioning their faith. Thai police this week arrested a woman accused of bedding at least 11 monks in breach of their vows of celibacy, before blackmailing them with thousands of secretly taken photos of their trysts. The monks are said to have paid nearly US$12 million, funneled out of their monasteries, funded by donations from laypeople hoping to increase their merit and prospects for reincarnation. The scandal provoked outrage over hypocrisy in the monkhood, concern that their status
The United States Federal Communications Commission said on Wednesday it plans to adopt rules to bar companies from connecting undersea submarine communication cables to the US that include Chinese technology or equipment. “We have seen submarine cable infrastructure threatened in recent years by foreign adversaries, like China,” FCC Chair Brendan Carr said in a statement. “We are therefore taking action here to guard our submarine cables against foreign adversary ownership, and access as well as cyber and physical threats.” The United States has for years expressed concerns about China’s role in handling network traffic and the potential for espionage. The U.S. has
A disillusioned Japanese electorate feeling the economic pinch goes to the polls today, as a right-wing party promoting a “Japanese first” agenda gains popularity, with fears over foreigners becoming a major election issue. Birthed on YouTube during the COVID-19 pandemic, spreading conspiracy theories about vaccinations and a cabal of global elites, the Sanseito Party has widened its appeal ahead of today’s upper house vote — railing against immigration and dragging rhetoric that was once confined to Japan’s political fringes into the mainstream. Polls show the party might only secure 10 to 15 of the 125 seats up for grabs, but it is
The US Department of Education on Tuesday said it opened a foreign funding investigation into the University of Michigan (UM) while alleging it found “inaccurate and incomplete disclosures” in a review of the university’s foreign reports, after two Chinese scientists linked to the school were separately charged with smuggling biological materials into the US. As part of the investigation, the department asked the university to share, within 30 days, tax records related to foreign funding, a list of foreign gifts, grants and contracts with any foreign source, and other documents, the department said in a statement and in a letter to
RSS