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.
Four contenders are squaring up to succeed Antonio Guterres as secretary-general of the UN, which faces unprecedented global instability, wars and its own crushing budget crisis. Chile’s Michelle Bachelet, Argentina’s Rafael Grossi, Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan and Senegal’s Macky Sall are each to face grillings by 193 member states and non-governmental organizations for three hours today and tomorrow. It is only the second time the UN has held a public question-and-answer, a format created in 2016 to boost transparency. Ultimately the five permanent members of the UN’s top body, the Security Council, hold the power, wielding vetoes over who leads the
A humanoid robot that won a half-marathon race for robots in Beijing on Sunday ran faster than the human world record in a show of China’s technological leaps. The winner from Honor, a Chinese smartphone maker, completed the 21km race in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, said a WeChat post by the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, also known as Beijing E-Town, where the race began. That was faster than the human world record holder, Ugandan Jacob Kiplimo, who finished the same distance in about 57 minutes in March at the Lisbon road race. The performance by the robot marked a significant step forward
An earthquake registering a preliminary magnitude of 7.7 off northern Japan on Monday prompted a short-lived tsunami alert and the advisory of a higher risk of a possible mega-quake for coastal areas there. The Cabinet Office and the Japan Meteorological Agency said there was a 1% chance for a mega-quake, compared to a 0.1% chance during normal times, in the next week or so following the powerful quake near the Chishima and Japan trenches. Officials said the advisory was not a quake prediction but urged residents in 182 towns along the northeastern coasts to raise their preparedness while continuing their daily lives. Prime
HAZARDOUS CONDITION: The typhoon’s sheer size, with winds extending 443km from its center, slowed down the ability of responders to help communities, an official said The US Coast Guard was searching for six people after losing contact with their disabled boat off the coast of Guam following Typhoon Sinlaku. The crew of the 44m dry cargo vessel, the US-registered Mariana, on Wednesday notified the coast guard that the boat had lost its starboard engine and needed assistance, Petty Officer 3rd Class Avery Tibbets said yesterday. The coast guard set up a one-hour communication schedule with the vessel, but lost contact on Thursday. A Coast Guard HC-130 Hercules aircraft was launched to search for the six people on board, but it had to return to Guam because of
RSS