N. Korea seeks talks for becoming 'nuclear state,' U.S. envoy says North Korea is seeking direct or multilateral negotiations involving the United States in a bid to get recognized as a nuclear state, Washington's top envoy on Pyongyang said.
Amb. Glyn Davies, special representative for North Korea policy, stressed Washington is interested only in talks on denuclearizing the communist nation.
"It seems clear that North Korea is attempting to make these talks, when and if they occur in the future, about something very different, which is about their right to be a nuclear weapons state. That is not something we can countenance. That is not something we can accept," Davies told reporters on his visit to
Tokyo, according to a transcript released by the State Department.
Earlier this week, he also traveled to Seoul and Beijing for consultations on ways to deal with the North.
His remarks suggested that there is still a long way to go for the resumption of the six-party talks, although Pyongyang is calling for dialogue after spring's provocations and threats of war.
The six-way negotiations, launched in 2003, were last held in December 2008. The participating countries are the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia.
In 2005, the North agreed to abandon all of its nuclear program in exchange for political and economic incentives from the five dialogue partners. But it went ahead with three known underground nuclear tests.
"Obviously, ultimately, we hope that we can get back to meaningful, authentic, and credible six-party talks," the ambassador said. "But they should be about -- because this is what the Joint Statement of 2005 specifies -- they should be about the denuclearization in a peaceful fashion of the Korean Peninsula."
Davies expressed strong concern over reports that North Korea appears to have restarted its once-disabled nuclear reactor in Yongbyon.
"If it turns out that these reports are true, that North Korea has restarted the 5-megawatt plutonium reactor, this would be a very serious matter -- we think a misstep on the part of North Korea because, of course, it would violate a series of U.N. Security Council resolutions," he said.
Despite the reports, based on commercial satellite imagery, by some U.S. research institutes, Pyongyang has not made any announcement on whether it has actually put the reactor back into operation.
"We're watching this very closely," Davies said. "We'll see what developments occur in the coming days, but this is potentially quite a serious matter."
In Washington, the State Department also urged Pyongyang to comply with its commitments and international obligations.
"We've put a great deal of pressure on the North Koreans over this issue, including with some very, very strong sanctions," Marie Harf, the department's deputy spokeswoman, said at a press briefing.
The Obama administration will not give up denuclearization efforts, she emphasized.
"So we'll continue working with the international community to try to get North Korea to a place that it will in fact take irreversible steps to abandon its nuclear weapons and all existing programs in a complete and verifiable manner," Harf said. (Yonhap News)
