- BEIJING/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - North Korea said
on Friday it was willing to discuss its nuclear program with the United
States and the International Atomic Energy Agency, but insisted a nonaggression
pact was the only way to defuse the crisis.
-
- The United States dismissed the call for a pact, noting
that President Bush had said on a visit to South Korea last year that Washington
had no hostile intentions toward the Communist-run north.
-
- State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said what
was important was whether Pyongyang would abandon its nuclear program and
keep its agreements. He said: "The issue is not non-aggression. The
issue is whether North Korea will verifiably dismantle this nuclear enrichment
program."
-
- In Beijing the reclusive Communist state's ambassador
to China, Choe Jin-su, told a news conference the North's decision to reactivate
its nuclear program was an act of self-defense and denounced Washington
as the aggressor.
-
- "Only when both teams sit together can there be
a dialogue, and without dialogue, no one can talk about a peaceful solution,"
he said, criticizing Washington for labeling North Korea as part of an
"axis of evil" and accusing the United States of aiming missiles
at it.
-
- "If the U.S. legally assures us of security by concluding
a nonaggression treaty, the nuclear issue on the Korean peninsula will
be settled," he added.
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- N. KOREA SEEKS TALKS
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- Choe said talks with Washington about how to safeguard
the framework governing its nuclear program had been broken off. "This
issue should be negotiated in the future," he said. "If time
permits, we will discuss with the IAEA."
-
- Boucher said Washington would not be drawn into again
negotiating issues it believed settled in a 1994 agreement in which North
Korea froze its nuclear program in return for help with energy supplies
and promises of better relations.
-
- "We're not going to enter into negotiations in response
to threats or broken commitments. We're not going to bargain or offer inducements
to North Korea to live up to the treaties and agreements that it has signed,"
he told reporters.
-
- "We have no intention to sit down and bargain again,
to pay for this horse again."
-
- Washington announced in October that the North had admitted
to a previously undisclosed nuclear weapons program and has said it will
not reward bad behavior by holding talks with the North.
-
- North Korea set off further alarm bells around the world
by starting to reactivate the Yongbyon nuclear complex mothballed under
the 1994 deal with Washington and capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium.
-
- Calling for direct talks with Washington and a nonaggression
pact, it expelled U.N. inspectors monitoring the complex and said it would
no longer abide by the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
-
- Diplomatic efforts to bring the North into line gathered
pace Friday with South Korea, which held talks with China on Thursday,
sending an envoy to Russia for weekend talks.
-
- "We will ask strongly for the Russian government
to take an active role in contacts with North Korea to (persuade it to)
come to the table for negotiations that will secure a peaceful resolution
of the current situation," an official at the South Korean embassy
in Moscow told Reuters.
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- DIPLOMATIC FLURRY
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- The weekend talks in Moscow are a prelude to a meeting
in Washington Monday and Tuesday at which the United States, South Korea
and Japan will coordinate strategy before a visit to East Asia by U.S.
Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly.
-
- The Vienna-based IAEA, whose inspectors were expelled
by North Korea, also meets on Monday to discuss the crisis.
-
- A spokesman for South Korea's president-elect, quoted
by South Korea's Yonhap news agency, said Friday the South may offer to
mediate.
-
- "We are working on a mediation proposal that asks
for a concession from both U.S. President George Bush and the North Korean
leader," the chairman of Roh Moo-hyun's transition team, Lim Chae-jung,
was quoted as telling local television.
-
- Yonhap said the government was considering offering mediation
and asking Pyongyang to drop any nuclear weapons program in return for
Washington guaranteeing the North's security.
-
- Bush criticized the North's secretive leader, Kim Jong-il,
in remarks to reporters at his Texas ranch.
-
- "One of the reasons why the people are starving
is because the leader of North Korea hasn't seen to it that their economy
is strong or that they be fed," Bush said, adding that the United
States was donating food to the impoverished nation.
-
- China, which fought alongside the North in the 1950-53
Korean War, has so far balanced a call for a nuclear-free Korean peninsula
with support for dialogue between the United States and North Korea to
end the standoff.
-
- Russia is the only member of the Group of Eight leading
industrial nations to enjoy good relations with both halves of the divided
Korean peninsula.
-
- It initially denounced a U.S. decision to cut oil supplies
to North Korea, accusing Washington of provoking the crisis. On Monday,
it toughened its language against the North, saying it regretted Pyongyang's
decision to resume its nuclear activities.
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