Posted on 02/07/2007 8:37:39 PM PST by NormsRevenge
China hands out accord at nuclear talks
BURT HERMAN, Associated Press Writer
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070208/ap_on_re_as/koreas_nuclear
BEIJING - China has distributed a draft agreement to the countries at international talks seeking to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons programs, a South Korean official said early Friday. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the ongoing diplomacy, gave no details of the draft. However, other delegates said earlier the agreement would outline initial steps for implementing a September 2005 agreement from the six-nation talks where Pyongyang pledged to disarm in exchange for aid and security guarantees.
"We had a good first day today," Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill told reporters Thursday evening after North Korea agreed in principle to take initial steps toward dismantling its nuclear programs.
"We hope we can achieve some kind of joint statement here," he said.
Unlike the last round of talks in December, Hill said the countries "were able to make progress on discussing denuclearization."
Hill had said the draft agreement expected from China would detail a "set of actions taken in a finite amount of time." He declined to give specifics, but said the moves would take place in a matter of "single-digit weeks."
Hill remained cautious on prospects for an agreement, saying "the first step of a journey is often the most difficult step."
Pyongyang's envoy had said before the talks began that he was ready to discuss the initial steps toward nuclear disarmament.
"We are prepared to discuss first-stage measures," Kim Kye Gwan said on arriving in Beijing for the meeting at a Chinese state guesthouse.
U.S. experts who visited Kim in Pyongyang last week said North Korea would propose a freeze of its main nuclear reactor and a resumption of international inspections in exchange for energy aid and a normalization of relations with Washington.
Kim said Thursday that any moves by North Korea would depend on the U.S. attitude.
"We are going to make a judgment based on whether the United States will give up its hostile policy and come out toward peaceful coexistence," he said, adding that the U.S. was "well aware" of what it had to do.
North Korea had twice boycotted the nuclear talks for more than a year, claiming various U.S. policies show the Bush administration intends to topple its government.
"I'm not either optimistic or pessimistic because there are still many points of confrontation to resolve," Kim said.
Still, his comments marked a change in North Korea's position from the December round of talks, when Kim refused to even discuss disarmament and demanded the lifting of U.S. financial restrictions against a Macau bank where North Korea held accounts.
South Korean envoy Chun Yung-woo said all sides had agreed "it is important to reach agreement at this round of talks on first-phase measures."
The lack of any on-the-ground results in disarming North Korea has raised the issue of the credibility of the talks, which involve China, Japan, Russia, the U.S. and the two Koreas.
Since 2003, they have produced only a single joint statement in September 2005 on principles for North Korea to abandon its nuclear program in exchange for aid and pledges that Washington won't seek the regime's ouster.
Chun said earlier Thursday the negotiations were at an "important crossroads" and needed to move beyond words to actions.
"Joint efforts, wisdom and flexibility from all six countries are badly needed now more than any other time," he said.
The latest nuclear standoff with the North started in late 2002 after Washington accused North Korea of having a secret uranium enrichment program in violation of a 1994 deal between the two countries. North Korea expelled international nuclear inspectors and restarted its reactor, moves that culminated in its first-ever test atomic detonation in October.
Although the U.S. and key North Korean allies China and Russia backed U.N. sanctions in the wake of the nuclear test, Washington has since engaged in a series of diplomatic overtures that have drawn praise from the North.
They included a trip by Hill to Germany last month to meet Kim, along with separate U.S.-North Korean talks on the financial restrictions placed on the Macau bank.
The U.S. accuses Banco Delta Asia of complicity in North Korea's alleged counterfeiting and money-laundering, and blacklisting the bank has scared off other financial institutions from dealing with the North for fears of losing access to the U.S. market.
___
Associated Press reporters Jae-soon Chang, Alexa Olesen and Hiroko Tabuchi contributed to this report.
lol and bump!
Update
N. Korea talks resume on positive note (Chinese distribute draft agreement)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1781588/posts
.jpg)
Thank you for giving us your military secrets Sa...eerrr... Maddam Albright.
If you weren't so damn hideous I'd kiss you.
I can't figure out from the photo who is saying this to whom? Oh. I'll bet it's the toast. They are both saying it.
Your wee little bomb's not the issue.
You smell like a used toilet tissue.
If you weren't so damn hideous,
Conniving, perfidious,
And thoroughly rotten -- I'd kiss you.
Riiiight!
I'll make sure my cat does not walk in your yard if you don't have your dog off its chain. More appeasement - expected.
Yep they want us to pay again for the same things we paid for through Clinton's folly.
If they pay a third time we deserve what we get folks......
The opportunity to influence North Korea about their nuke program has come and past with their successful detonation of a nuke. Once a country has them, they will never give it up. Unfortunately for the USA, they have already exported the critical data to build bombs to Iran and probably Al Queda also.
Our choices:
1) Attack North Korea before they have 30 bombs and they decide to attack the South using them. This course of action would certainly ignite a larger war with China.
2) Assassinate Kim Jong-ill. Possible, but difficult. Of course their are no guarantees we'll get a better leader in his place out of that regime.
3) Naval blockade, freeze of all exports and imports going out of North Korea. This would stop the nuclear material and missle technology from being proliferated which is our main objective at this point.
Any of these options to North Korea are tantamount to us declaring war on them so if we are to do anything we should hit their fortified nuclear facilities with bunker busters and have our navy and air force ready for the counter attack into South Korea.
I'll take a shot at it: "embalgo" and "brockade."
One purpose of the North Korean nuke is to get South Korea, and the US in South Korea (under SK pressure), to disarm. Kim wants to rule the whole peninsula.
Stop for a moment and think about that headline....... Nuclear disarmament in exchange for an attitude change - What's next...My president can beat up your president? I didn't know NK had 12 year old boys doing their negotiating.
Simple.....ever hear of a Trojan Horse...or wolf in sheeps clothing. here they come.
I'm all for placing a nuke in the shorts of Kim no Dong Ill.
agreed!! John Bolton seems to be on this page also!!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.