North Korea said it wouldn't need any nuclear weapons if the US treated it like a friend as the isolated nation joined South Korea yesterday for high-level reconciliation talks shadowed by the international standoff over the North's nuclear ambitions.
"If the United States treats the North in a friendly manner, we will possess not one nuclear weapon," the North Korean delegation said, according to Kim Chun-shick, spokesman for the South's side.
The statement echoed a pledge by North Korean leader Kim Jong-il who met Friday with visiting South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young and said Pyongyang could return to international nuclear disarmament talks as soon as next month if it gets appropriate respect from Washington.
PHOTO: AP
Chung, head of Seoul's delegation, yesterday urged the North to return to the nuclear talks in July, his ministry said in a summary of his remarks.
"The North Korean nuclear issue is a matter between the two Koreas as well as an international one," Kim Chun-shick quoted Chung as saying.
The North has stayed away from six-party talks aimed at persuading it to disarm since June 2004, citing "hostile" US policies, and declared in February that it had nuclear weapons. It has insisted that the nuclear standoff can only be discussed with the United States, and no breakthroughs on the issue were expected at this week's inter-Korean talks.
The two Koreas were instead focusing on aid and cooperative projects to bridge their divided peninsula, including cross-border trade and family reunions among Koreans separated since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.
At the start of Wednesday's talks, the North requested food aid citing continuing shortages, Kim Chun-shick said. He declined to specify the amount but said it was on par with donations made in previous years.
On Saturday, the North requested 150,000 tons in fertilizer aid from the South, on top of 200,000 tons that it has already received this year. Seoul earlier this year declined to respond to a record request for 500,000 tons, citing previously stalled contacts with the North.
In related news, Kim Jong-il attempted to engage President George W. Bush directly on the nuclear weapons issue three years ago but the administration spurned the overture, two American experts on Asia said on Wednesday.
Writing in the Washington Post, former US ambassador to South Korea Donald Gregg and former journalist Don Oberdorfer expressed concern that Kim's November 2002 initiative was never pursued and urged Bush to respond positively to his current overture, made last week.
When Bush took office in 2001, US officials estimated Pyongyang had fuel for one or two nuclear weapons. Now, that estimate is up to at least half a dozen and, the authors said, "many believe their claim to have fabricated the weapons themselves."
Gregg and Oberdorfer said they visited Pyongyang in November 2002, after then-US Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly was there and accused the North of pursuing a secret program of enriching uranium for nuclear weapons.
Gregg and Oberdorfer said while in Pyongyang "we were given a written personal message from Kim to Bush."
Kim stated if the US recognized the North's sovereignty and provided non-aggression assurances "it is our view that we should be able to find a way to resolve the nuclear issue in compliance with the demands of a new century."
Also in the message, Kim further promised "if the United States makes a bold decision, we will respond accordingly," the authors wrote in an opinion piece.
They said they took the message to senior White House and State Department officials and urged them to follow up on Kim's initiative.
But the administration, then planning for the Iraq invasion, "spurned engagement with North Korea," said Gregg and Oberdorfer.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday vowed that those behind bogus flood control projects would be arrested before Christmas, days after deadly back-to-back typhoons left swathes of the country underwater. Scores of construction firm owners, government officials and lawmakers — including Marcos’ cousin congressman — have been accused of pocketing funds for substandard or so-called “ghost” infrastructure projects. The Philippine Department of Finance has estimated the nation’s economy lost up to 118.5 billion pesos (US$2 billion) since 2023 due to corruption in flood control projects. Criminal cases against most of the people implicated are nearly complete, Marcos told reporters. “We don’t file cases for
Ecuadorans are today to vote on whether to allow the return of foreign military bases and the drafting of a new constitution that could give the country’s president more power. Voters are to decide on the presence of foreign military bases, which have been banned on Ecuadoran soil since 2008. A “yes” vote would likely bring the return of the US military to the Manta air base on the Pacific coast — once a hub for US anti-drug operations. Other questions concern ending public funding for political parties, reducing the number of lawmakers and creating an elected body that would
A feud has broken out between the top leaders of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party on whether to maintain close ties with Russia. The AfD leader Alice Weidel this week slammed planned visits to Russia by some party lawmakers, while coleader Tino Chrupalla voiced a defense of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The unusual split comes at a time when mainstream politicians have accused the anti-immigration AfD of acting as stooges for the Kremlin and even spying for Russia. The row has also erupted in a year in which the AfD is flying high, often polling above the record 20 percent it
‘ATTACK ON CIVILIZATION’: The culture ministry released drawings of six missing statues representing the Roman goddess of Venus, the tallest of which was 40cm Investigators believe that the theft of several ancient statues dating back to the Roman era from Syria’s national museum was likely the work of an individual, not an organized gang, officials said on Wednesday. The National Museum of Damascus was closed after the heist was discovered early on Monday. The museum had reopened in January as the country recovers from a 14-year civil war and the fall of the 54-year al-Assad dynasty last year. On Wednesday, a security vehicle was parked outside the main gate of the museum in central Damascus while security guards stood nearby. People were not allowed in because
RSS