US Offers Aid Incentive to NK: Hubbard
2003-01-20
U.S. Ambassador to Seoul Thomas Hubbard said on Sunday the United States will provide North Korea with a wide range of aid if it abandons its nuclear weapons program.
"If they satisfy our concerns about the nuclear programs, we are prepared to consider a broad approach that would entail, in the final analysis, some economic cooperation, perhaps in the power field," he said.
"We are prepared to offer beyond food aid," Hubbard said on a Sunday morning talk show of state-run KBS.
Describing the North Korean nuclear issue as a challenge to the entire international community, he called for more active participation by other countries in the process of settling the crisis.
"We don't see North Korea as exclusively a U.S. problem. Its nuclear threat is not just a threat to the U.S.," he said.
While resolving that America will continue to assume the leading role in defusing the crisis, Hubbard said it will focus on peaceful and diplomatic settlement.
He called on North Korea to repeal its nuclear weapons program immediately in a verifiable manner, saying that without this there will be no "bold approach" toward the North such as economic assistance.
He said North Korea had cheated the U.S. although U.S. had abided by the 1994 Agreed Framework.
Source : www.korea.net
