South Korea yesterday dashed hopes of an early breakthrough on North Korea's nuclear drive, saying the North seems intent on shunning six-nation talks despite joining top negotiators for a forum here.
Chief negotiators from the six nations are gathering in Tokyo this week for a private security conference at a time when North Korea refuses to return to the formal talks on ending its nuclear ambitions.
But Chun Young-woo, South Korea's chief delegate to the stalled six-nation talks, said: "You had better not expect too much."
"North Korea seems to be toiling a lot over the current situation, but it seems not to be deciding to return to the six-way talks," Chun said after a closed-door workshop attended by his Pyongyang counterpart, North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gye-gwan.
"Under such circumstances, I think it will be difficult to have US-North Korean bilateral consultations," Chun said.
"This kind of unofficial meeting may help in understanding each other's position, but this is not the type of gathering that can produce a breakthrough," Chun said of the five-day conference.
The six-nation talks bogged down in November after the US accused Pyongyang of counterfeiting US dollars and laundering money. The North has denied the charge and demanded the US lift financial sanctions before it returns to the negotiating table.
"The United States knows very well what is necessary to resume the talks," Kim said on his arrival in Japan.
No meeting has been announced so far between Kim and his US counterpart, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill.
Kim held separate bilateral talks on Saturday evening both with South Korea and Japan, which is embroiled in a row with the North over the regime's past abductions of Japanese civilians.
Waseda University professor Toshimitsu Shigemura, a North Korea expert, said Pyongyang could use the "two-track" conference, involving private and public figures, to "make people feel like giving something to North Korea and asking the United States to be more lenient."
Hideshi Takesada, a professor at Japan's National Institute for Defense Studies, expects the North to use the Tokyo conference to try to persuade China, South Korea and Russia that the money-laundering allegations are false.
The stalemate in the talks will be embarrassing for Chinese President Hu Jintao (
"North Korea will be a complicated, hot topic when Hu meets Bush. The six nations want to have some meeting in advance, albeit informally," Keio University law professor Masao Okonogi said. "If the six-nation framework collapses, it may lead to action on the part of the United Nations. That is something the six countries want to avoid."
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday took to the streets of Spain’s eastern city of Valencia to mark the first anniversary of floods that killed 229 people and to denounce the handling of the disaster. Demonstrators, many carrying photos of the victims, called on regional government head Carlos Mazon to resign over what they said was the slow response to one of Europe’s deadliest natural disasters in decades. “People are still really angry,” said Rosa Cerros, a 42-year-old government worker who took part with her husband and two young daughters. “Why weren’t people evacuated? Its incomprehensible,” she said. Mazon’s
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
RSS