| Submit your comments on this article |
| China-Japan-Koreas |
| NKorean nuclear talks end in deadlock, finger-pointing |
| 2006-12-22 |
| Surrrrrrrprise surprise surprise... BEIJING (AFP) - Six-nation talks aimed at persuading North Korea to give up its nuclear arms program closed in deadlock, with the United States and the North blaming each other for the impasse. The latest round of talks wrapped up after five days of meetings with no progress made and no date set for another round. The negotiations snagged on North Korea's refusal to engage in substantive discussions until the United States lifted financial sanctions imposed last year which have frozen millions of dollars of North Korean funds in a Macau bank. North Korea's chief negotiator Kim Kye-Gwan blamed a "hostile" US policy toward Pyongyang for the failure of the talks."I feel the United States has not yet decided to lift sanctions and abandon its hostile policy against us," Kim told a press conference after the talks ended."It is clear who should be responsible for the failure to have substantive discussions." The six nations -- China, the two Koreas, the United States, Japan and Russia -- had resumed the intermittent, three-year-old forum this week hoping to make real progress toward a denuclearized Korean peninsula. But following its first-ever atomic test on October 9, an emboldened North Korea unveiled a long list of demands at the opening of the talks, which it had boycotted for the previous 13 months. The chief US envoy to the talks, Christopher Hill, placed the blame squarely on North Korea, accusing its envoy of not having the authority to negotiate on the nuclear issue."Certainly we expected him to have the authority to negotiate on the six-party talks. We also had the expectation that BDA (frozen North Korean accounts in Macau's Banco Delta Asia) would be addressed in a separate mechanism that the treasury department on our side was handling. The DPRK (North Korea) had made a point that they wanted the financial issue to be discussed and resolved, but there was never an agreement or understanding that that had to be done ... in the first round of renewed six-party talks." Hill said he was "disappointed that we did not come out with a clear agreement" but was confident of talks resuming soon. "We are talking weeks, not months," he said."We'll see where we are and try to regroup and see if we can go in the next few weeks." Earlier Friday, Hill had said North Korea had refused to consider undisclosed US proposals to end the crisis earlier in the week. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called Friday for the world to unite to pressure North Korea."The international community needs to unite and implement the UN resolution in order to lead North Korea to take specific actions," Abe said, referring to UN sanctions triggered by the October test explosion."The North Koreans need to realize that they won't solve such problems as the serious food issue -- in which many of its people suffer from a shortage of daily food -- unless they solve (the nuclear issue)." However in remarks released on Friday, South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun accused the United States of being partly to blame for the standoff. Roh said the United States wrecked a six-party deal struck in September last year in which the North agreed to give up its nuclear program in return for security guarantees and aid. He said the United States' imposition of the financial sanctions just a few days before that deal angered the North, and suggested the timing may not have been a coincidence. "If you look at it in a bad light, you may say (the two US departments) were playing a pre-arranged game," he said, in reference to the US State Department, which is involved in the six-party talks, and Treasury, which imposed the sanctions. In a closing statement at the end of the talks, China's delegate Wu Dawei said only that the six participants had recommitted to previous broad goals. "The parties... reaffirmed their common goal and will to achieve the peaceful goal of denuclearization of the Korean peninsula through dialogue," he said. Aside from the US financial sanctions issue, North Korea this week demanded the lifting of the separate UN sanctions and insisted on aid to build a nuclear reactor for power. North Korea's envoy Kim said defiantly on Friday that Pyongyang would not back down from its demand that the financial sanctions be lifted. "The United States is applying both carrots and sticks in parallel. We stand up to the US with dialogue and a shield, the shield being a strengthening of our (military) deterrent," he said. |
| Posted by:tu3031 |
| #9 Goodness me! Them boys got lips like .10¢ pickles! |
| Posted by: Circles it is! 2006-12-22 16:09 |
| #8 now, now, to be truly accurate MSM > ITS TEXAS STATE GOVERNATOR DUBYA'S FAULT. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2006-12-22 21:26 |
| #7 This is probably one place from which we should withdraw and publicly state our intention never to send troops to again. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2006-12-22 18:15 |
| #6 This is probably one place where we should send Kerry. |
| Posted by: Master of Obvious 2006-12-22 18:10 |
| #5 The violated every condition in the agreements between them and the Clinton Admin. They are beyond trusting, and if they came to the table they must be in a hurt. |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2006-12-22 15:38 |
| #4 Don't think of this as failed talks; instead think of it as the next step in a UN sponsored jobs program. |
| Posted by: USN, Ret. 2006-12-22 13:57 |
| #3 well i for one am shocked and feel very pointed at by fingers. /i have no idea.. |
| Posted by: RD 2006-12-22 13:10 |
| #2 Everyone who is surprised by any of this please raise your hand. So we can all hoot and jeer at you. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2006-12-22 13:07 |
| #1 However in remarks released on Friday, South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun accused the United States of being partly to blame for the standoff. It's Bush's Fault - how original... |
| Posted by: Raj 2006-12-22 12:40 |