[USFK Forums] North Korea delays Cabinet talks [AP]

[C. Y. Lee]

Uploaded by C. Y. Lee on Sunday, March 12, 2006

North Korea delays Cabinet talks

Sunday, March 12, 2006

By Kwang-Tae Kim, Associated Press Writer

SEOUL, South Korea: North Korea postponed high-level talks with South Korea in anger at US military drills in the region and vowed Saturday to strengthen its peaceful nuclear activities in the face of Washington’s alleged biased nuclear policy.

North Korea informed South Korea on Saturday of its decision to protest an upcoming South Korea-US joint military exercise and proposed to convene the talks in April, the North’s official news agency said.

“It is our stand that the hostile war exercises and peaceful dialogue cannot go together,” the North’s Cabinet counselor, Kwon Ho Ung, said in a telephone message to his South Korean counterpart carried by the Korean Central News Agency.

Also Saturday, North Korea vowed to step up its peaceful nuclear activities and urged the United States to change its biased nuclear policy toward the communist country, KCNA said in a separate commentary.

“The US attempt at totally blocking [North Korea’s] nuclear activities for a peaceful purpose is quite unfair,” it said, adding that Pyongyang would not halt its program. “The US should recognize the right of all countries to use nuclear technology for a peaceful purpose.”

The North accused the United States of double standards over the nuclear issue and insisted that it be treated the same as other nuclear powers that have not signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Kwon, who served as the North’s chief negotiator in inter-Korean Cabinet-level talks, said the military exercise cannot be justified and Seoul’s “wrong behavior” made it impossible to hold the 18th round of the talks this month in Pyongyang as scheduled.

The exercises, dubbed RSOI and Foal Eagle, will involve 20,000 American troops and an undisclosed number of South Korean soldiers and will run for a week starting March 25, according to the US military command in Seoul.

“Your side will be held wholly responsible for the expected delay of this year’s first inter-Korean ministerial talks,” Kwon said.

South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which handles inter-Korean affairs, issued a statement expressing regret at the North’s unilateral decision to delay the talks.

“The government urges the North to have a faithful attitude,” the statement said, adding that it had previously explained to North Korean that the annual military drill is only for defense purposes.

The Cabinet-level talks are the highest-level regular dialogue channel between the two Koreas since a landmark inter-Korean summit in 2000, which touched off a set of exchanges and cross-border projects.

North Korea routinely condemns the annual joint military exercises as preparations for an invasion.

Pyongyang’s demand came a week after US President George W. Bush signed an accord in India that would open some of its atomic reactors to international inspections in exchange for US nuclear know-how and atomic fuel, even though New Delhi hasn’t signed the nonproliferation treaty.

North Korea said the US policy of giving favors to some countries while opposing the nuclear programs of other nations cannot be tolerated.

Also Saturday, South Korea’s chief nuclear negotiator, Chun Young Woo, said he had talked with his Chinese counterpart, Wu Dawei, on how to break the impasse over the stalled talks on the North’s nuclear weapons program.

“A quick resumption of talks is important but what is more important is to make substantial progress when the talks are resumed,” Chun told The Associated Press after arriving Seoul from his trip to China.

North Korea has refused to return to the negotiating table since Washington blacklisted a Macau bank and eight North Korean companies it said were involved in counterfeiting, money laundering and weapons proliferation charges denied by North Korea. The talks also include South Korea, Russia and Japan.

The Rodong Sinmun called on the United States to allow international inspections of its nuclear weapons in South Korea, and withdraw all its weapons and about 29,500 troops from the South, saying it is a fair solution to the nuclear issue of the Korean Peninsula.

The communist country quit the International Atomic Energy Agency and kicked out its inspectors after US officials accused it in 2002 of running a secret uranium enrichment program. Last year, Pyongyang said it had nuclear weapons, though it hasn’t been verified independently.



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