New Mexico Governor and US presidential hopeful Bill Richardson spent his first full day in North Korea yesterday to try to recover the remains of US war dead, saying he believes Pyongyang wants a better relationship with Washington.
The White House has said the trip by Richardson is separate from the six-party disarmament talks.
Richardson, who has undertaken five previous missions to Pyongyang, has also said he will not negotiate nuclear matters. But he expressed hope the North would honor its deal.
"I believe for the first time they do want to enter into an agreement with the six-party countries and they want a better relationship with the United States. They know that the key is dismantling their nuclear weapons," he said on his plane before arriving on Sunday night.
But he cautioned: "I have learned with the North Koreans, you don't know what they are going to do next. They are totally unpredictable."
The US, China, the two Koreas, Russia and Japan reached an agreement on Feb. 13 under which the North would disable its nuclear programs in return for economic aid and diplomatic benefits.
As a first step, it was to shut down and seal its reactor and other facilities at Yongbyon by April 14, invite in UN inspectors and receive an initial 50,000 tonnes of fuel oil.
But talks have been stymied by a row over US$25 million in North Korean funds frozen in a Macau bank at US instigation on suspicion they are linked to money-laundering and counterfeiting. The US has promised to unblock the funds to get the disarmament talks moving, but technical banking hurdles remain.
South Korea's largest circulation newspaper Chosun Ilbo indicated yesterday the dispute is not settled. A government official told the paper the North demands the money be transferred to another of its overseas bank accounts, "but there are too many difficulties in reality."
"The US and China insist that everything should be taken care of by the Macau authorities and North Korea," the official said.
US nuclear envoy Christopher Hill was to leave on Sunday for Tokyo and later head to Seoul and Beijing in an apparent bid to restart talks.
The delegation led by Richardson will visit the inter-Korean border village of Panmunjom tomorrow, where the soldiers' remains are scheduled to be transferred.
The team will then cross the border and head for a US army garrison in the Yongsan district of Seoul for a formal repatriation ceremony on Thursday.
More than 33,000 US troops died in the 1950 to 1953 war and about 8,100 are listed as missing.
Richardson has said that the return of any remains would be a great sign of progress in the relationship.
In comments in Pyongyang he expressed optimism.
"I have been informed that there will be some American remains delivered to us," he said.
AFGHAN CHILD: A court battle is ongoing over if the toddler can stay with Joshua Mast and his wife, who wanted ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ for her Major Joshua Mast, a US Marine whose adoption of an Afghan war orphan has spurred a years-long legal battle, is to remain on active duty after a three-member panel of Marines on Tuesday found that while he acted in a way unbecoming of an officer to bring home the baby girl, it did not warrant his separation from the military. Lawyers for the Marine Corps argued that Mast abused his position, disregarded orders of his superiors, mishandled classified information and improperly used a government computer in his fight over the child who was found orphaned on the battlefield in rural Afghanistan
EYEING THE US ELECTION: Analysts say that Pyongyang would likely leverage its enlarged nuclear arsenal for concessions after a new US administration is inaugurated North Korean leader Kim Jong-un warned again that he could use nuclear weapons in potential conflicts with South Korea and the US, as he accused them of provoking North Korea and raising animosities on the Korean Peninsula, state media reported yesterday. Kim has issued threats to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively numerous times, but his latest warning came as experts said that North Korea could ramp up hostilities ahead of next month’s US presidential election. In a Monday speech at a university named after him, the Kim Jong-un National Defense University, he said that North Korea “will without hesitation use all its attack
US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris is in “excellent health” and fit for the presidency, according to a medical report published by the White House on Saturday as she challenged her rival, former US president Donald Trump, to publish his own health records. “Vice President Harris remains in excellent health,” her physician Joshua Simmons said in the report, adding that she “possesses the physical and mental resiliency required to successfully execute the duties of the presidency.” Speaking to reporters ahead of a trip to North Carolina, Harris called Trump’s unwillingness to publish his records “a further example
RUSSIAN INPUT: Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov called Washington’s actions in Asia ‘destructive,’ accusing it of being the reason for the ‘militarization’ of Japan The US is concerned about China’s “increasingly dangerous and unlawful” activities in the disputed South China Sea, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told ASEAN leaders yesterday during an annual summit, and pledged that Washington would continue to uphold freedom of navigation in the region. The 10-member ASEAN meeting with Blinken followed a series of confrontations at sea between China and ASEAN members Philippines and Vietnam. “We are very concerned about China’s increasingly dangerous and unlawful activities in the South China Sea which have injured people, harm vessels from ASEAN nations and contradict commitments to peaceful resolutions of disputes,” said Blinken, who
RSS