N. Korea Poses Conditions for Talks with US
Voice of America
VOA News
13 Jun 2003, 13:04 UTC
A prominent daily newspaper in Japan says North Korea has agreed to five-party talks on its nuclear program, but only after holding bilateral discussions with the United States.
The Asahi Shimbun quotes North Korea's deputy representative to the United Nations, Han Song Ryol, as saying Pyongyang would agree to multilateral talks if it could first win direct negotiations with the United States. The newspaper interpreted Mr. Han's remarks as a conditional acceptance of a reported U.S. proposal for five-way talks including China, Japan and South Korea.
Reuters news agency reported Thursday that the United States proposed the five-way discussions in secret talks with North Korea's U.N. delegation last week. Reuters also said Washington proposed one-on-one talks at the same time as a five-way gathering.
A U.S. State Department spokesman Thursday denied the Reuters report. Meanwhile, senior officials from the United States, Japan and South Korea are holding meetings in Hawaii about North Korea's nuclear weapons program. Japan's Kyoto news agency says the officials reaffirmed their commitment to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue peacefully through dialogue.
Tensions in the region have been high since October, when U.S. officials said North Korea disclosed it was moving forward on nuclear weapons development, in violation of a 1994 agreement.
Some information for this report provided by AP and Reuters.
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