China has proposed a new draft statement at talks on North Korea's nuclear program, the US envoy said yesterday, after weekend discussions were snarled by the North's demands for what it should receive in exchange for disarming.
The new draft, submitted late Sunday, "reflected all sides' modifications" to the first Chinese-written draft, said US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill. He wouldn't give any details, but said, "I think the process is going forward rather well."
Hill said delegates would meet yesterday to discuss the new proposal. The statement of basic principles is meant to lay the basis for future talks aimed at ending the three-year-old standoff over demands that the North give up nuclear development. The talks involve the two Koreas, the US, Japan, host China and Russia.
The US and North Korea held direct talks twice yesterday, a South Korean official said on condition of anonymity. The frequent and in-depth discussions between Washington and Pyongyang have been a marked change from previous six-nation talks. According to South Korea's delegate, Deputy Foreign Minister Song Min-soon, talks Sunday focused on a key sticking point: what steps the other governments will take in exchange for an agreement by the North to dismantle its nuclear program.
The North has demanded concessions such as security guarantees and aid from Washington before it eliminates its weapons program, while the US wants to see the arms destroyed first.
The North has also insisted that it be allowed to run a peaceful nuclear power program, something Washington objects to out of proliferation concerns.
Hill dismissed suggestions that this round of talks -- the fourth in a series that began in 2003 -- might be completed yesterday. The delegates have set no ending date, in contrast to earlier sessions, which each ended after three days.
"Everything's a problem until everything's solved, and nothing is solved until everything is solved," Hill said.
Song, the South Korean envoy, said delegations still had a series of discussions ahead of them between their leaders and other officials.
"Narrowing differences in opinions cannot be done by the hour," Song said.
No details regarding either draft statement have been released, but Japanese media said it called for North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons programs and other programs that could potentially produce such arms.
The draft also addresses normalization of US and Japanese relations with the North, Kyodo News agency reported.
The Japanese side is dissatisfied with the draft proposed by China because it fails to mention Japanese citizens the North has admitted to kidnapping, Kyodo said.
The Japanese delegate, Deputy Foreign Minister Sasae Kenichiro, wouldn't confirm that report, but said, "For Japan, we will do our best to reflect our stance in the draft."
Another issue of contention is the North's demand that it be allowed peaceful use of nuclear technology to remedy its electricity shortage, a request dating back to an earlier nuclear crisis that ended in a 1994 agreement with the US. But Washington is reluctant to allow it any nuclear programs that could be diverted to weapons use.
"It is premature to talk about results, because the six-party process is continuing," Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Alexeyev said.
"We are expecting the talks to last some more days," Alexeyev said.
In February, the North claimed it had nuclear weapons and has since taken steps that would allow it to harvest more plutonium for possible use in bombs.
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
‘DISAPPEARED COMPLETELY’: The melting of thousands of glaciers is a major threat to people in the landlocked region that already suffers from a water shortage Near a wooden hut high up in the Kyrgyz mountains, scientist Gulbara Omorova walked to a pile of gray rocks, reminiscing how the same spot was a glacier just a few years ago. At an altitude of 4,000m, the 35-year-old researcher is surrounded by the giant peaks of the towering Tian Shan range that also stretches into China, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The area is home to thousands of glaciers that are melting at an alarming rate in Central Asia, already hard-hit by climate change. A glaciologist, Omarova is recording that process — worried about the future. She hiked six hours to get to
The number of people in Japan aged 100 or older has hit a record high of more than 95,000, almost 90 percent of whom are women, government data showed yesterday. The figures further highlight the slow-burning demographic crisis gripping the world’s fourth-biggest economy as its population ages and shrinks. As of Sept. 1, Japan had 95,119 centenarians, up 2,980 year-on-year, with 83,958 of them women and 11,161 men, the Japanese Ministry of Health said in a statement. On Sunday, separate government data showed that the number of over-65s has hit a record high of 36.25 million, accounting for 29.3 percent of