North Korea makes offer

[Guest Jobber of the Week]

http://reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type...StoryID=1631997

 

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea, under pressure to end a suspected nuclear weapons program, stridently set its terms on Friday for addressing U.S. concerns: a non-aggression pact and a guarantee of the impoverished communist state's sovereignty.

 

The North Korean Foreign Ministry said that, "with greatest magnanimity," it had set three conditions for talks to address concerns raised by its admission that it had revived a banned nuclear arms program by preparing to enrich uranium.

 

"Firstly, if the U.S. recognizes the DPRK'S sovereignty, secondly, if it assures the DPRK of non-aggression and thirdly, if the U.S. does not hinder the economic development of the DPRK," a Foreign Ministry spokesman said in a statement.

 

The lengthy statement, carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), used the acronym of the communist state's official title, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea.

 

The United States has ruled out negotiations with the North Koreans until they dismantle the uranium enrichment program. But Washington said it sought a peaceful solution and was maintaining contacts with the North through its U.N. mission.

 

"We have seen that report and we are studying it. We will not have a response this evening," a senior State Department official told reporters on Thursday in the Mexican resort of Los Cabos, where President Bush is to attend a weekend summit of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) grouping.

 

NORTH BLAMES U.S.

 

South Korea, whose president and foreign minister are attending the APEC meeting, issued a statement calling on North Korea to "clarify the substance of its nuclear weapons program" and pay heed to international concerns about the issue.

 

"South Korea will maintain close contacts with the United States and Japan to resolve North Korea's nuclear issue peacefully through dialogue," the South's Foreign Ministry said.

 

North Korea's spokesman said the nuclear issue "cropped up as the U.S. has massively stockpiled nuclear weapons in South Korea and its vicinity and threatened the DPRK, a small country, with those weapons for nearly half a century."

 

Washington had aggravated its threat to Pyongyang when Bush labeled North Korea part of an "axis of evil" with Iraq and Iran and then unveiled a doctrine of pre-emptive strikes against states developing weapons of mass destruction.

 

"Nobody would be so naive as to think that the DPRK would sit idle under such situation," it said.

 

Pyongyang accused Washington of failing to comply with the 1994 Agreed Framework that froze North Korea's nuclear weapons development to defuse an earlier crisis.

 

Under the agreement, North Korea has been receiving fuel oil from the United States and Washington's Asian allies were preparing to build two proliferation-proof light-water nuclear reactors to generate electricity in North Korea.

 

Pyongyang also agreed to regular inspections of its nuclear facilities by the International Atomic Energy Agency, but the U.N. nuclear watchdog's critical verification has yet to begin.

 

The reactors are years behind the original schedule, which had set a target of 2003 for completion, with the nuclear components delivered after the North passed IAEA inspections.

 

NUCLEAR DIPLOMACY IN MEXICO

 

Western experts say the reactor delays are partly due to complex coordination among the United States and its allies, but mostly a result of North Korean attempts to renegotiate terms and by crises triggered by a Northern spy submarine raid on the South in 1996 and a ballistic missile test over Japan in 1998.

 

Pyongyang suggested Washington signed the pact in bad faith.

 

"It is only the U.S. that can know whether it had willingness to implement the Framework when it was adopted or put a signature to it without sincerity, calculating that the DPRK would collapse sooner or later," the Foreign Ministry said.

 

On Thursday, Secretary of State Colin Powell had talks with South Korean Foreign Minister Choi Sung-hong on the sidelines of the APEC meeting in Mexico.

 

Powell and Choi agreed they had a very serious problem with North Korea, a second senior State Department official said.

 

"Both agree that they should handle it peacefully. They and we agree the ball is in the court of the North Koreans," the official said.

 

Bush, South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi are to meet in Los Cabos on Saturday to try to agree a joint approach to the DPRK's nuclear program.

 

On Friday, Bush will host Chinese President Jiang Zemin at his Texas ranch, where the two "will seek a common approach on how to convince North Korea to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.

 

A senior Bush administration official said Bush would discuss with Jiang potential "diplomatic, political and perhaps financial pressures on North Korea." (Additional reporting by Jonathan Wright in Los Cabos, Mexico and Steve Holland in Crawford, Texas)

 

If the US agreed to this, it could pretty much end the Korean War. I think we ought to do it and let S. Korea pay for their own defense. They aren't a poor nation anymore, and they want us to get out of their country.