North Korea says it has agreed with the US to return to nuclear talks to be held on July 25, the South Korean KCNA news agency reported late yesterday.
In related news, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sent a message Friday to North Korea that Washington has no intention of attacking the hardline communist nation as she embarked on an Asian trip to ease a nuclear crisis in the Korean peninsula.
North Korea has persistently cited "US hostility" as a key reason for boycotting the six-party talks -- among the US, Japan, China, the two Koreas and Russia -- and had demanded a clear security guarantee from Washington.
PHOTO: AP
"The key here is that there were some important things to say -- important to reiterate [President George W. Bush's] pledge given back in 2002 in South Korea that the US has no intention of attacking or invading" North Korea, Rice said.
The US also considers North Korea a sovereign nation, she told reporters accompanying her on the plane to China, Thailand, South Korea and Japan.
"It was important to state what we consider to be a statement of fact that the US considers North Korea a sovereign state -- after all, the North Koreans are members of the UN and held negotiations along with other sovereign states," she said.
Last month, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il said his country would come back to the six-party talks if the US "recognizes and respects" his country as a dialogue partner.
In other developments, North Korean government officials arrived in Seoul yesterday ahead of four days of talks with their South Korean counterparts aimed at building closer inter-Korean economic cooperation. North Korea's five-member delegation, headed by deputy minister for construction and building Choe Yong-gon, kickstarted the visit with a dinner hosted by South Korea's Unification Minister Chung Dong-Young.
During the talks set to begin today, the two sides will discuss North Korea's request for 500,000 tonnes of rice to supplement a reduction in World Food Program assistance.
North Korea had rejected a US-led aid-for-disarmament proposal at the last round of the talks in June 2004 that required Pyongyang to give an upfront pledge to dismantle all its nuclear programs before receiving any energy and other assistance. Pyongyang wants a step by step approach to weaning away from its nuclear program, fearing it could come under attack by the US if it loses the nuclear card.
The US was part of the security guarantee given to North Korea by the five other parties at the nuclear talks but Pyongyang had complained there was no individual guarantee from Washington. As if to address this concern, Rice said Friday: "There are principles on the table that the US has no intention to invade or attack North Korea.
"I think if they heard from the US, they would certainly believe that would be in the security assurances of any of the other parties," she said.
Efforts to break the impasse in the nuclear crisis that had gripped the Korean peninsula for some two and a half years is clearly expected to dominate Rice's Asian trip. She will first visit China, the host of the six-party talks, and then to tsunami-hit Thailand before returning to Northeast Asia for talks with key Asian allies Japan and South Korea.
This is Rice's second trip to China, South Korea and Japan in some three months and analysts see it as a reflection of Washington's eagerness to see an end to the nuclear turmoil, viewed as Asia's biggest security problem.
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
OVERHAUL: The move would likely mark the end to Voice of America, which was founded in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda and operated in nearly 50 languages The parent agency of Voice of America (VOA) on Friday said it had issued termination notices to more than 639 more staff, completing an 85 percent decrease in personnel since March and effectively spelling the end of a broadcasting network founded to counter Nazi propaganda. US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) senior advisor Kari Lake said the staff reduction meant 1,400 positions had been eliminated as part of US President Donald Trump’s agenda to cut staffing at the agency to a statutory minimum. “Reduction in Force Termination Notices were sent to 639 employees at USAGM and Voice of America, part of a
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
RSS