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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| U.S.: Agenda for N.Korea Talks 'Quite Narrow' |
| 2009-12-08 |
| A senior State Department official said Monday that the U.S. agenda for talks with North Korea will be limited to determining whether Pyongyang is willing to return to Chinese-sponsored talks on its nuclear program and to reaffirm its 2005 agreement in principle to disarm. U.S. envoy to North Korea Stephen Bosworth will arrive in Pyongyang on Tuesday for the highest-level bilateral meeting since President Barack Obama took office in January. There have been press reports that North Korea wants to use the Bosworth visit to pursue its long-standing quest for a peace treaty with Washington that would end the technical state of war that has existed since the Korean conflict of the 1950s. But a senior State Department official who spoke to reporters on the eve of the U.S. envoy's arrival in Pyongyang says Bosworth has a "quite narrow" agenda in North Korea, to determine whether the communist state will return to disarmament talks and to reaffirm the 2005 framework agreement under which Pyongyang is to scrap its nuclear program -- including weapons, in return for aid and other benefits from world powers. The senior official said Bosworth will seek clarity on North Korea's intentions and said that if it wants to return to the negotiations, he is sure China would be ready to reconvene them. He said that if Pyongyang rejects the resumption of six-party discussions, the other participants would focus on enforcing sanctions under U.N. Security Council resolution 1874, which was approved after North Korea's May 25th nuclear test and consider possible additional penalties. |
| Posted by:Steve White |