The United States and China have decided not to resume six-party talks on North Korea's atomic weapons program this year but hope to restart them, unconditionally, early in 2004, the Bush administration said Monday. China, the main go-between between the United States and North Korea, reportedly was urging the Americans to be more flexible in their approach.
| I think we tried bending over backwards. You can't get more flexible than that. It didn't work. |
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the Chinese, who helped organize the first round of talks in Beijing in August, told the Americans it would be impossible to convene a meeting this week as they had been trying to do. China delivered a plan to North Korea last week in which the United States, South Korea and Japan offered a blueprint for resolving the nuclear dispute. The other nation involved in the talks is Russia. Boucher said Secretary of State Colin Powell discussed the status of the talks by telephone Sunday with Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing of China. He gave no details of their discussion, but China's official Xinhua News Agency reported that Zhaoxing "expressed hope for the U.S. side to take a more flexible and practical attitude in preparation for the next round." North Korea rejected the proposal on Monday and warned that Washington's "delaying tactics" would only prompt it to step up its nuclear program.
| Since everything prompts them to step up their nuclear program, that statement doesn't mean much. |
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