North Korea vowed yesterday to bolster its atomic arsenal in response to what it called Washington’s “persistent hostile policy,” even as a special envoy for US President Barack Obama traveled to the region in a bid to draw Pyongyang back to nuclear negotiations.
Envoy Stephen Bosworth, speaking in Beijing before heading to Seoul yesterday, said Washington was ready and willing to talk directly with Pyongyang.
“The United States reiterates its desire to engage both multilaterally and bilaterally with North Korea,” Bosworth told reporters after holding talks with senior Chinese officials on Thursday. “We believe very strongly that the solution to the tensions and problems of the area now lies in dialogue and negotiation.”
But North Korea dismissed the Obama administration’s stance as “unchanged” from a previous policy of hostility.
“Nothing would be expected from the US, which remains unchanged in its hostility toward its dialogue partner,” the North’s foreign ministry said in a statement carried yesterday by state media. The North “will bolster its nuclear deterrent as it has already clarified.”
Pyongyang, which carried out a nuclear test in 2006 and is believed to have enough plutonium to make at least a half-dozen atomic bombs, has been locked in a standoff over its nuclear program for months.
Pyongyang called the April 5 launch a successful bid to send a satellite into space. The US and others saw it as a violation of UN Security Council resolutions barring the North from ballistic missile-related activity since the same technology can be used to fire an intercontinental missile mounted with nuclear arms.
South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper recently reported “brisk” activity has been detected at the North’s nuclear test site, citing an unnamed South Korean government source. The report could not be confirmed.
In Washington, a counterproliferation official would not confirm whether the US believes North Korea is on the cusp of conducting a nuclear test but said Pyongyang is capable of conducting one quickly if desired. The official spoke on Thursday on condition of anonymity.
Bosworth and nuclear talks envoy Sung Kim had no set plans to visit Pyongyang during his regional tour, which includes stops in Tokyo and Moscow in addition to Beijing and Seoul, the State Department said.
While campaigning for the presidency, Obama said he would be willing to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il if it helps denuclearization. His administration has so far maintained its support for talks within the framework of nuclear negotiations.
US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Washington’s goal was to get North Korea back to the disarmament process, but warned it would be difficult.
“We may have to show some patience before that is achieved,” she told reporters after talks on Thursday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, whose trip to Pyongyang last month produced little progress in getting the North back to the negotiating table.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS