Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

KCNA Urges U.S. to Lift Financial Sanctions

Korean Central News Agency of DPRK via Korea News Service (KNS)

    Pyongyang, March 25 (KCNA) -- It is shame on the United States to let loose malarkey intended to give impression that it is making a sort of big concession to make the six-party talks roll again. Shortly ago, the U.S. Ambassador to Seoul Vershbow asserted the need to discuss north Korea's proposal to set up a non-permanent consultative body aimed to handle the issue of "counterfeit notes" within the framework of the six-party talks, saying that the talks are tasked to discuss the issue of normalizing relations between the DPRK and the U.S. as well as the nuclear issue.
    This assertion is nothing but a sleight of hand to cover up Washington's true colors and do harm to the dialogue partner.
    The six-party talks came to a deadlock due to the U.S. financial sanctions. It is the real intention of the U.S. to tighten financial sanctions against the DPRK with a view to preventing the six-party talks from resuming and doing harm to it. The DPRK was generous enough to advance at the New York DPRK-U.S. working-level talks proposals for settling the above-said issue, taking the reality in which the resumption of the talks is blocked by those sanctions into due consideration. The Bush administration, however, turned down all those sincere proposals after the talks, talking about the "effect of sanctions". Worse still, it asserted in a "report on national security strategy" that it would continue taking all necessary measures, thus openly adopting it as its national policy to apply financial sanctions against the DPRK. The U.S. financial sanctions against the DPRK were the principal reason why the six-party talks have reached an impasse. But the U.S. is insisting on discussing the issue of financial sanctions at the six-party talks in a bid to shift the responsibility for the delayed talks on to the DPRK side.
    If the U.S. truly wants to resume the six-party talks with a bold decision to improve the relations with the DPRK it had better just lift financial sanctions before talking about the resumption of the talks.
    It, however, does not want an earlier resumption of the talks, to say nothing of lifting the sanctions.
    It is the view of the international community that the U.S. is not likely to return to the talks as it is beset with so many troubles and self-contradictions such as Iraqi and Iranian issues and the total bankruptcy of its "nuclear non-proliferation strategy." The U.S. is gravely mistaken if it thinks that such a word jugglery intended to hide its own weak point will work on its relations with the DPRK.
    It is none other than the U.S. that raised a series of irrelevant issues after the fourth round of the six-party talks in a bid to deliberately throw hurdles in the way of the talks. This means that the talks will naturally roll on if the U.S. lifts a check-bar. Should the U.S. persist in its delaying-tactics, counting on its financial sanctions, the DPRK will not fritter away time, either.