South Korea hopes to launch talks with the US, China and North Korea on a peace treaty to formally end the Korean War when progress becomes visible in disabling Pyongyang's nuclear facilities, Seoul's top diplomat said yesterday.
The remark by South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-soon means that the four-nation peace talks could start in a couple of months, as North Korea is supposed to disable its nuclear facilities by year's end.
Song also said that US troops, stationed in South Korea to deter threats from the North, should keep their presence here even after a peace treaty is signed.
"The government is in talks with directly related countries with the aim of opening negotiations on a peace regime at a time when progress is visible in North Korea's nuclear disablement," Song told a security forum in Seoul.
Talk of replacing the 1950-1953 Korean War armistice with a peace treaty gained significant momentum this month as the two Koreas agreed at a summit to seek to organize a summit of parties to the ceasefire to discuss the issue.
The Korean War armistice involved the US, China and North Korea. South Korea never signed it, as it believed a truce would leave the Korean peninsula divided. Seoul officials said, however, that there is no objection from the three countries to the South getting involved in a peace treaty.
Finalizing a peace treaty is expected to be a lengthy process, as it depends on North Korea's nuclear dismantlement.
"The South and the North will play the leading role in the Korean peninsula peace regime that will be established, as they are the ones who will have to uphold it," Song said. "The US and China will play roles that adequately reflect their status in forming the 1953 armistice."
The US has about 28,000 soldiers in South Korea to support the country's some 670,000 troops. North Korea has a 1.2 million-strong military, most of whom are stationed near the heavily fortified border that divides the peninsula.
Washington's ambassador to Tokyo sent US President George W. Bush a cable warning that portions of the pending nuclear deal with North Korea could harm relations with Japan, the Washington Post reported yesterday.
In addition, US Ambassador Thomas Schieffer complained that the deal with Pyongyang was being negotiated by top State Department officials with no knowledge or input from the embassy in Tokyo.
The deal could result in removing North Korea from Washington's list of state sponsors of terrorism -- a move that could harm ties with Japan, Schieffer wrote.
Although ambassadors rarely send cables directly to the president, Schieffer -- a former ambassador to Australia -- is a long-time friend and former Bush business partner, the Post reported.
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
For two decades, researchers observed members of the Ngogo chimpanzee group of Kibale National Park in Uganda spend their days eating fruits and leaves, resting, traveling and grooming in their tropical rainforest abode, but this stable community then fractured and descended into years of deadly violence. The researchers are now describing the first clearly documented example of a group of wild chimpanzees splitting into two separate factions, with one launching a series of coordinated attacks against the other. Adult males and infants were targeted, with 28 deaths. “Biting, pounding the victim with their hands, dragging them, kicking them — mostly adult males,
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
SUPERFAN: The Japanese PM played keyboard in a Deep Purple tribute band in middle school and then switched to drums at university, she told the British rock band Legendary British rock band Deep Purple yesterday made Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s day with a brief visit to their high-profile superfan as they returned to the nation they first toured more than half a century ago. Takaichi’s reputation as an amateur drummer, and a fan of hard rock and heavy metal has been well documented, and she has referred to Deep Purple as one of her favorite bands along with the likes of Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. “You are my god,” a giddy Takaichi said in English to Deep Purple drummer Ian Paice, presenting him with a set of made-in-Japan
RSS