North Korea 'ready to talk' nuclear disarmament
North Korea expressed its readiness today to discuss initial steps of its nuclear disarmament, raising hopes for the first tangible progress at talks on Pyongyang’s atomic weapons programme in more than three years.
“We are prepared to discuss first-stage measures,” the North’s nuclear envoy Kim Kye Gwan said on arriving in Beijing for the six-nation negotiations due to start this morning.
Media reports have suggested the North may agree to freeze its main nuclear reactor and allow international inspectors in exchange for energy aid as a starting step to disarm.
But Kim said any moves by North Korea would be determined by America’s attitude.
“We are going to make a judgment based on whether the US will give up its hostile policy and come out towards peaceful coexistence,” he said, adding that Washington was “well aware” of what it had to do.
The North has twice boycotted the talks for more than a year, claiming various US policies show Washington’s thinly-veiled desire to topple the Pyongyang regime.
“I’m not either optimistic or pessimistic because there are still many points of confrontation to resolve,” Kim said.
Earlier, the main US envoy said he sensed “there is a real desire to have progress” by the North Koreans at the talks.
The lack of any on-the-ground results on disarming the North at the negotiations has raised the issue of the credibility of the talks.
Since 2003, they have produced only a single agreement in September 2005 on principles for the North to abandon its nuclear programme in exchange for aid and pledges that Washington will not seek the ousting of the regime.
Before this week’s round, the North had signalled it was satisfied with changes in the US attitude amid an apparent greater willingness on all sides to compromise on issues that deadlocked previous talks.
But US envoy Christopher Hill denied a report in a Japanese newspaper today that the US and North Korea had signed a memorandum during bilateral talks last month agreeing that Pyongyang’s first steps toward denuclearisation and US energy support would begin simultaneously.
“We did not sign anything,” Hill said, but added he was hopeful the Beijing talks would lead to progress such as working groups to discuss technical issues.
Japanese envoy Kenichiro Sasae said the main goal of the current round of talks was to make concrete progress towards disarmament.
“We are prepared to do our utmost toward this goal, and we strongly hope and are certain that North Korea has come prepared to do that,” Sasae said in Beijing.
The latest nuclear standoff with the North was sparked in late 2002 after Washington accused Pyongyang of a secret uranium enrichment programme, in violation of a 1994 deal between the two countries.
North Korea kicked out nuclear inspectors and restarted its main reactor, moves that culminated in the country’s first test atomic detonation in October last year.
Although the US and other key North Korean allies China and Russia backed United Nations sanctions in the wake of the nuclear test, Washington has since engaged in a series of diplomatic overtures that have drawn praise from Pyongyang.
Washington has also held separate talks on financial restrictions it placed on a Macau bank where the North held accounts, accusing it of complicity in the regime’s alleged counterfeiting and money laundering. Blacklisting that bank has scared off other financial institutions from dealings with the North for fears of losing access to the US market.
The North had earlier demanded the financial restrictions be lifted for it to disarm, and refused to talk about anything besides that issue at the last nuclear talks in December.
No end date has been set for this round of talks, but Hill has said the Chinese hosts expected the talks to last a few days and the sides would start reviewing a draft agreement tomorrow.
