South urges US to talk to N Korea
South Korea’s unification minister today urged the US to engage in direct talks with North Korea over a potential long-range missile launch.
“Our government has the view that the US administration should also be more actively involved in discussions” with North Korea, Lee Jong-seok said in a speech delivered to a research institute, Yonhap news agency reported.
Seoul has urged the US to engage in direct talks with the North, but Washington has refused, Lee said.
“We will continue to push for this matter,” he said. “The most important thing is to stop North Korea from firing a missile.”
A senior US diplomat rebuffed criticism that Washington was being inflexible in refusing direct talks with North Korea, saying the US was ready for bi-lateral talks at six-nation meetings on the North’s nuclear programme that Pyongyang has boycotted since last year.
“Frequent efforts to say both sides are equally inflexible is unfair,” the diplomat said.
“The US position is not rejecting direct talks, the North Koreans can have direct talks if they agree to six-party talks.
“We hope they’re taking very seriously the warnings we’ve made – the Chinese, the (South) Koreans, the Japanese, the Russians and the Europeans – and they’re thinking twice about taking this provocative step,” he said.
Still, technical reasons such as bad weather could also partially explain why the North hasn’t yet fired its missile.
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