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North Korea demands direct talks with US over nukes
North Korea has demanded direct talks with Washington since conducting a series of nuclear and missile tests and quitting six-party nuclear negotiations involving China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the US earlier this year.
“As the [North] was magnanimous enough to clarify the stand that it is possible to hold multilateral talks including the six-party talks depending on the talks with the US, now is the US turn,” North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said, according to Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency.
“If the US is not ready to sit at a negotiating table with the [North] , it will go its own way,” the ministry said. North Korea agreed in 2007 to disable its nuclear facilities -- as a step toward its ultimate dismantlement -- in exchange for energy aid and political concessions. Pyongyang halted the process and later abandoned the pact after receiving most of the promised energy aid and concessions. The standoff led to Pyongyang conducting its second nuclear test and banned missile tests earlier this year.
However, North Korea said on Monday that “meaningful progress” on a nuclear-free Korean peninsula is possible ”if the hostile relations between the [North] and the US are settled and confidence is built between them.”
The North has warned in recent months it is enlarging its nuclear stockpile, saying it is “weaponizing” plutonium and has succeeded in enriching uranium, a second way of building atomic bombs, in an apparent attempt to pressure Washington to agree to one-on-one talks.
North Korea has long called for direct talks with the US to resolve the nuclear standoff, and maintains it is compelled to develop atomic bombs to cope with what it calls “US nuclear threats.”
Washington has denied it has any intention of attacking the North, but Defense Secretary Robert Gates assured South Korea last month it would use all military capabilities -- including its nuclear might -- to defend the longtime ally.
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