North Korea's top nuclear negotiator said yesterday that Washington needs to lift financial sanctions against Pyongyang and drop its hostile attitude before the regime will consider abandoning its nuclear program.
"As long as we need a deterrent we don't have any reason to abandon it [the nuclear program] now," Kim Kye-gwan told reporters after arriving in Beijing for talks set to resume tomorrow.
"The biggest problem is that the United States needs to change its hostile policy against North Korea," he said. "When they change their policy from a hostile stance to one of peaceful coexistence the problem can be resolved."
North Korea walked away from the talks -- which also include China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the US -- 13 months ago.
North Korea agreed at the close of the last session of talks in September last year to abandon its nuclear program in exchange for security guarantees and aid.
But Washington imposed financial sanctions against a Macau-based bank on suspicions it was laundering counterfeit money for the North Koreans. Angered by the move, Pyongyang withdrew from the talks two months later.
Kim called the US lifting of financial sanctions against it a "precondition" to moving forward with the negotiations.
"When it comes to the outlook of the six-party talks, it's hard to be optimistic," Kim said. He said that the North's demands were made clear in talks with the US side in Beijing last month.
"The US knew what we wanted when they went back [to Washington], so we have to wait and see what answers the US will bring when the talk begins," Kim said.
South Korea's Yonhap news agency cited a South Korean embassy official as saying that Kim may have a bilateral meeting later yesterday with his South Korean counterpart, Chun Yung-woo, who was due to arrive in Beijing in the afternoon.
North Korea agreed to return to the negotiating table weeks after conducting its first-ever nuclear weapon test on Oct. 9.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not