- (AFP) - North Korea renewed a threat to conduct a nuclear
weapons test during talks with the United States in the sidelines of six-party
talks to end Pyongyang's nuclear arms drive, a senior US official said.
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- But the official stressed that the threat made at the
meeting was not new and he believed Pyongyang would continue to give "careful
and serious" consideration to a new US plan to end the nuclear crisis
in the Korean peninsula.
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- The plan was submitted earlier this week at the six-party
talks in Beijing involving the United States, two Koreas, China, Russia
and Japan.
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- It would require North Korea to fully dismantle its nuclear
arms network in return for food and energy aid and security guarantees.
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- North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gye Gwan met with
US Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly in private talks on the second
day of the Beijing meeting.
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- "The threat isn't anything new and came in the context
of long and substantive discussion of our proposal and we left the meeting
feeling that they would give the plan careful and serious consideration,"
the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
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- The official disputed some news reports quoting a senior
administration official as saying that the North Korean threat suggested
the Beijing discussions were headed toward failure.
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