U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday offered North Korea a peace treaty, normal ties and aid if it eliminates its nuclear arms program and stressed her desire to work more cooperatively with China.
Speaking ahead of a trip to Japan, Indonesia, South Korea and China next week, Clinton also said North Koreans deserved political rights, urged Myanmar to free opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and, in a comment that may irk Beijing, said Tibetans and all Chinese deserved religious freedom.
Searching for a way to end North Korea's nuclear programs is likely to be one of the main topics on Clinton's week-long trip to Asia that will also cover the global financial crisis and climate change.
"If North Korea is genuinely prepared to completely and verifiably eliminate their nuclear weapons program, the Obama administration will be willing to normalise bilateral relations, replace the peninsula's long-standing armistice agreements with a permanent peace treaty, and assist in meeting the energy and other economic needs of the North Korean people," Clinton said at New York's Asia Society.
While the offer echoes an approach ultimately pursued by former U.S. President George W. Bush, in emphasizing it Clinton was underlining U.S. President Barack Obama's desire to revive diplomacy with the secretive, communist nation.
However, Clinton also said she hoped North Korea, which has unleashed a salvo of bellicose rhetoric in recent weeks and is reported to have made preparations for a long-range missile test, would not engage in what she called "provocative" actions that would make it more difficult to work with Pyongyang.
Talks to end North Korea's nuclear arms program have been stalled for months. Pyongyang complains that aid given in return for crippling its nuclear plant at Yongbyon is not being delivered as promised in a six-party deal it struck with China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States.
The secretive North has balked at a demand by the other powers that it commit to a system to verify claims it made about its nuclear program, leaving the talks in limbo.
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