Posted on 10/31/2006 11:24:10 AM PST by Brilliant
North Korea has agreed to return to talks on its nuclear programme, the United States said, in a diplomatic breakthrough just three weeks after stunning the world with its first atomic test.
US President George W. Bush said he was "very pleased" at the surprise announcement, which followed seven hours of secret negotiations in Beijing.
The talks -- involving China, the two Koreas, Russia, the United States and Japan -- could restart as soon as November, Washington's chief negotiator Christopher Hill told reporters here.
North Korea reaffirmed its pledge to give up nuclear weapons in exchange for security guarantees and other concessions, and set no conditions for ending its year-long boycott of the talks, he said.
The development was immediately welcomed by South Korea, Japan, Russia and Britain, as well as the White House, and Bush said US teams would be sent to monitor the situation.
"We'll be sending teams to the region to work with our partners to make sure that the current United Nations Security Council resolution is enforced but also to make sure the talks are effective, that we achieve the result we want," he said, referring to Washington's desire for North Korea to abandon all of its nuclear weapons programs.
Hill's announcement at a hastily-arranged news conference followed seven hours of secret talks between the US negotiator and his counterparts to the six-party talks from North Korea and its closest ally China.
"We believe it will be either this coming month, November, (or) possibly December," he replied when asked when the talks would restart.
"They did not make any conditions," he added. "For us it was very important that no-one should create conditions for attending the talks."
Hill said North Korea, one of the most poorest and isolated regimes in the world, had reaffirmed the pledge it first made last year -- before the talks stalled -- to give up nuclear weapons in return for concessions.
"We all reaffirmed, including the North Koreans, our commitment to the September (2005) statement and the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula," he said.
South Korea said the developments had eased tensions following the North's October 9 atomic test.
"It gives us relief," South Korea's unification ministry spokesman Yang Chang-seok told Yonhap news agency.
US National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said in Washington: "We welcome the announcement and look forward to resuming the talks soon."
Japan's top government spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki, said Tokyo had been seeking the North's "prompt, unconditional return" to the multilateral process.
The Russian foreign ministry welcomed the development and Britain hailed it as "very positive".
North Korea pulled out of the talks in November last year in protest at US financial sanctions imposed against it for alleged counterfeiting and money laundering by Pyongyang.
Pyongyang had insisted it would not return until those financial sanctions were lifted.
However Hill said North Korean envoy Kim Kye-Gwan had told him Tuesday that it was now ready to deal with that issue in the six-party forum.
"They made very clear that these were not conditions, but they wanted to hear that we would address the issue of the financial measures in the context of the talks," Hill said.
"And I said we would be prepared to create a mechanism, or working group and to address these financial issues."
He gave no indication as to why North Korea had made such a dramatic U-turn.
The Chinese foreign ministry said Beijing had initiated the secret talks here, which also included China's envoy Wu Dawei.
"The three parties engaged in a frank and deep exchange of views on continuing the six-party talks. The three parties agreed to carry out the six-party talks in the near future, at the six parties' convenience," it said in a statement on its website.
North Korea's nuclear test triggered fierce global condemnation, including from China, and led to sweeping UN sanctions.
The six-party talks began in 2003 with the intent of convincing North Korea to give up its nuclear ambitions.
On September 19 last year, the North agreed to give up its nuclear weapons in exchange for pledges of aid and security.
In that agreement, North Korea said it would renounce all nuclear weapons and programmes, return to the international Non-Proliferation Treaty and allow UN weapons inspectors back into the country.
The other countries agreed to "respect" the North's demand for peaceful nuclear energy and said Pyongyang's request to have a light-water reactor for peaceful purposes would be revisited "at an appropriate time".
Peter Beck, Northeast Asia director of the International Crisis Group, said the breakthrough was largely down to China.
"The fact they agreed to negotiations so quickly is a clear indication that China's arm-twisting has worked," he told AFP.
RoVE, YOU MAGNIFICENT BASTARD!.......
Then it's agreed, we will have ranch dressing on our salads. Oh, light dressing?
Oh crap, he hung up again...
-Liberal US diplomats making "breakthroughs" with North Korea
one of the most poorest and isolated regimes in the world.
Hey, maybe this will help the repubs in the election.
Woo hoo! Sorta like Nixon and China.
Methinks that the third wheel of the Axis of Evil is about come off.
This isn't a breakthrough...it's a stalling tactic.
Please, please don't let Bush be a sucker and believe anything they say. Don't give an inch in exchange for promises, hard evidence only.
What's he stalling? We aren't going to do anything anyway, and he knows it.
What's happened is that the Chinese finally realize that this is not helping them.
Bush is probably going to let the Chinese and the Japanese do the talking.
"Me love you long time!" -Dear Leader
Yeah, right.
Was it the UN, or was it the Japanese Navy? Maybe it was Secy Rice saying that the full range of US nukes work just fine. Maybe it was a phone call from Beijing at three in the morning.
This could be significant, if only because it leaves liberals with egg on their face. The left had been insisting that NK's nuclear test was all Bush's fault because he wouldn't engage NK one-on-one. Now it looks like our approach has worked.
I can't see how people think this is a breakthrough... NK has agreed to talk and pulled out the rug 10 times before. Why wouldn't they do it again? Saying this is a breakthrough is akin to telling someone dying of aids that the lesions are a pretty color.
I don't think that anything Kim agrees to is a breakthru. But this time he's not doing it voluntarily. The Chinese are poking him with a spear. It's just a question of how far they are willing to go. They could crush him like a bug tomorrow.
And it would never have happened at all if Bush had agreed to one on one talks, as demanded by the Dems and the McCain wing.
Either that or another attempt to extort more money and nuke parts out of the West.
I wonder if the current sKerry non-apology will take up too much time in the media, giving them a way to ignore this significant victory of Bush's foreign policy, to the dismay of the Klintoon fans saying we need to talk to them one-on-one like sending Maddy Albright to toast with "Dear Leader".
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