US, N. Korea hold their positions tight at 6-party talks
(Agencies/chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2004-02-25 15:34

Envoys from the United States and North Korea staked out sharply different positions at the start of six-way talks on Wednesday in Beijing on a crisis over Pyongyang's nuclear programs, underscoring the difficulties of a major breakthrough.

Top negotiators from (L-R) the United States, Japan, North Korea, China, South Korea, and Russia, shake hands before the opening session of the second round of the six-party talks [Xinhua]

The United States stood fast, calling for the irreversible, verifiable dismantling of North Korea's plutonium and uranium weapons programs and repeating that it did not intend to attack N. Korea.

North Korea and the United States are expected to hold bilateral talks Wednesday on the sidelines of a six-country meeting about the North's nuclear program, said Lee Soo-hyuck, the leader of South Korea's delegation. Sources said the meeting would be held Wednesday afternoon at the state guesthouse where the main talks were held earlier. The U.S. delegation is led by Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly, while Pyongyang's is headed by Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan.

After half a year of shuttle diplomacy, delegates from North and South Korea, the United States, China, Russia and Japan shook hands before taking their places at a hexagonal table in a guarded guesthouse for the second such meeting brokered by China.

China swiftly took on the role of honest broker.

"As the talks deepen, we will face more difficulties and meet more challenges. The talks aim to enlarge the consensus, not to highlight the differences, to settle problems, not to escalate conflict," said Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

North Korea said it hoped the talks would create "a positive result" and narrow the gap between Pyongyang and Washington, said its top negotiator, Deputy Foreign Minister Kim Gye-gwan,

POLITICAL WILL NEEDED

"The United States seeks the complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement of all the DPRK's nuclear programs, both plutonium and uranium-based," U. S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly said.

Many analysts see little hope of substantive progress at the first-day talks since an inconclusive round last August because of deep mistrust between the two protagonists and disagreement over the suspected uranium enrichment program.

North Korea's Kim said political will at this round "would serve as a basis for narrowing down the existing differences of position and opinions between the DPRK and the United States and break the current impasse."

The nuclear crisis erupted in October 2002 when U.S. officials said North Korea admitted to a covert program to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. The North Korea has since denied such a scheme, but it has offered to freeze a plutonium-based program that it reactivated when it pulled out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty last year.

However, it warned on Tuesday that any attempt to raise the "purely fictitious" uranium issue would only prolong the crisis.

DEMANDING COMMITMENTS

In a move to reassure Pyongyang, which has demanded security guarantees from the United States in the form of a non-aggression pact, Kelly said North Korea had no need for concern.

"The United States has no intention of invading or attacking the DPRK," he said, using North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Washington was not alone in seeking clarity on the uranium.

"North Korea must make commitments to promptly abandon its nuclear programs and activities, including the enriched uranium program, and fully disclose its nuclear programs," Japanese delegate Mitoji Yabunaka said.

South Korea's Lee Soo-hyuck said a swift solution was crucial. "We need to send a clear message. The message is that a nuclear-free Korean peninsula is not in the distant future.

Signs have emerged that Pyongyang's stance may be softening.

North Korean diplomats held informal talks this month in Vienna with officials from the U.N. nuclear watchdog on a possible resumption of inspections of the country's nuclear complex at Yongbyon, Japan's Kyodo news agency said on Tuesday.

This was the first substantial contact between North Korea and the International Atomic Energy Agency since inspectors were ousted in December 2002.

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