• Military

• WMD Menu                           

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Simultaneous concessions needed: North

2004-02-05

The United States should ensure the success of the upcoming six-party talks by agreeing to deliver concessions at the same time North Korea freezes its nuclear weapons development, North Korea reiterated on Wednesday (Feb. 4).

The communist country maintained its established stance during the first plenary session of inter-Korean ministerial talks in Seoul, which opened a day after the North consented to rejoin the long-awaited multilateral nuclear talks later this month.

Pyongyang's insistence on simultaneous actions with Washington to settle the 15-month nuclear dispute indicates the issue will be a hot potato when the second round of six-party talks opens Feb. 25 in Beijing. Washington has said Pyongyang should first begin dismantling its nuclear weapons programs.

"What is important is to solve the nuclear issue through our consistent principle of simultaneous actions," said Kim Ryong-song, the North's chief representative to the 13th Cabinet-level talks.

Kim said the U.S. side should agree, as the first step to ending their dispute, to compensate the North for the freeze of its nuclear facilities, which have been reactivated since the ongoing tension erupted in October 2002.

Pyongyang had earlier urged Washington to remove it from a list of nations suspected of sponsoring terrorism and provide energy assistance and economic aid in the beginning stages.

"The six-way talks could not have been resumed mainly due to the U.S. side. The United States has not at all retreated from its demand that we should first give up our nuclear development," North's Cabinet Councilor Kim said.

Responding to his North Korean counterpart, Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun stressed that the participants should resolve the issue based on mutuality. The talks involve the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia.

"We urged the North to take progressive measures to dismantle its nuclear weapons development as a nuclear freeze would not resolve the issue," said Shin Eon-sang, a spokesman for the South Korean delegation.

Seoul hopes Pyongyang will declare publicly during the six-way talks that it will scrap its nuclear weapons programs in a "complete, verifiable and irreversible" way, Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon told reporters.

Apart from consultations on the nuclear issue, South and North Korea worked out specific measures to enhance bilateral cooperation.

South Korea suggested resuming defense officials' talks to build the mutual confidence necessary to continue cross-border cooperation projects including transportation links and an industrial complex in the North Korean city of Gaeseong.

The South also asked the North to arrange another round of reunions for families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War.

In response, Pyongyang called on Seoul to speed up bilateral cooperation projects.

It also said the two countries should join hands to change the spelling of the nation's English name to "Corea."

Some scholars have said "Korea" is a vestige of Japanese colonial rule over the nation between 1910 and 1936. It is argued that Japan changed the spelling to "Korea" to ensure Japan would precede its neighbor in alphabetical order.

www.Korea.net