WASHINGTON - The resumed six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons program will end only with a firm commitment that Kim Jong Il's government is scrapping the program, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday.
Only in that context, she said, will the negotiators talk about economic and energy aid to North Korea and increased political contact that eventually could lead to full relations between the United States and the communist-led country.
"I don't think anyone would ask us that we set a firm deadline by which, if we cannot do this, then the talks end," Rice told reporters after meeting with Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer. "I do think that there is an expectation in the international community that these talks are not for the sake of talks."
She said that, in talking with her colleagues at last month's meeting in North Vietnam of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, she got a "very strong sense that these talks need to show results."
The Chinese government announced on Monday that the suspended talks would be resumed Dec. 18 in Beijing. On Sept. 19, 2005, the six parties — North and South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the United States — signed a joint statement setting out the talks' goals and security guarantees and other incentives that could follow once North Korea was committed to denuclearization.
more...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061213/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_nkorea
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
