Senior US, Chinese Officials Hold Talks on North Korea's Nuclear Weapons Program
David Gollust
State Department
18 Jul 2003, 22:29 UTC
A senior Chinese envoy Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo met top Bush administration officials in Washington Friday on Beijing's efforts to arrange further talks on North Korea's nuclear program.
The Chinese envoy went to the White House to see Bush national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and then to the State Department for a meeting with Secretary of State Colin Powell.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher cautioned in advance against any expectation of an immediate announcement on a date and format for new nuclear talks.
But he did down-play the notion that the United States might accept, as a basis for a deal, a revival of the 1994 "Agreed Framework" with Pyongyang that froze but did not dismantle North Korea's nuclear program.
"If we're going to resolve this in a manner that we want, that the Chinese want, that the international community wants, and that's an irreversible and verifiable end to the nuclear weapons programs, there are going to have to be different arrangements in the future," he said.
Mr. Dai came to Washington after completing a four-day visit to North Korea on Tuesday
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
