Posted on 06/08/2005 10:13:02 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Wed Jun 8, 9:37 AM ET
SEOUL (AFP) - North Korea ruled out new talks on its nuclear ambitions unless Washington meets unspecified conditions, in a setback to efforts to resolve the standoff.
The Stalinist state's official Korean Central News Agency said a fourth round of the stalled six-nation talks would take place only when the United States agrees to its demands.
"As for the resumption of the six-party talks, it entirely depends on the US response to the DPRK's (North Korea's) call for creating conditions and an environment for their resumption," a North Korean foreign ministry spokesman was quoted as saying.
The statement, which followed a rare meeting between US and North Korean officials in New York on Monday, punctured hopes raised by China for an early resumption of talks.
Beijing's ambassador to the United Nations, Wang Guangya, had indicated that North Korea had decided to attend a new round of talks soon, possibly within "the next few weeks".
The United States believes that North Korea, an isolated communist country battling a food crisis, may be developing and planning to test nuclear weapons and has called on its neighbours to help resolve the crisis.
China has hosted past talks with the two Koreas, Japan, the United States and Russia, but North Korea has boycotted the negotiations since June 2004 and said it will return only once conditions are "mature".
As a precondition, it has called for an end to US "hostility" and verbal criticism of the regime and its leader Kim Jong-Il.
Pyongyang bristled at US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's reference to North Korea as an "outpost of tyranny" in January and Bush's more recent reference to the North Korean leader as a "tyrant" who starves his people.
In Wednesday's statement, the unidentified foreign ministry official also condemned US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's for "slandering" North Korea and undermining efforts to bring Pyongyang back to six-party talks.
"At the recent Asia Security Conference held in Singapore, Rumsfeld malignantly slandered the DPRK, asserting its regime is keen on the arms buildup only and it is a miserable country," the spokesman said.
"This clearly tells he is an imbecile quite ignorant of diplomacy, dialogue and negotiation."
Pyongyang's latest verbal attack came just days after senior US and North Korean diplomats met in New York on Monday.
Joseph DiTrani, US special envoy to the six-party talks, and Jim Foster, head of the State Department's Office of Korean Affairs, met with Pyongyang's UN ambassador and his deputy for the second time in less than a month.
The US State Department said North Korea had said at the meeting that it would return to the talks, although no date was mentioned.
But the Pyongyang foreign ministry spokesman on Wednesday complained of receiving mixed signals from Washington.
"The US is urging its dialogue partner to come out for the talks while seriously insulting and provoking it at a time when a DPRK-U.S. contact is underway in the direction of the resumption of the six-party talks," he said.
"The remarks made by Rumsfeld against this backdrop can be uttered only by a stupid who does not know what is politics."
Experts and officials said North Korea, despite the latest comments, may be inching towards a new round of talks, but that nothing concrete was yet known.
Chong Woo-Seong, foreign policy advisor to South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun, said that, without a date for new talks, optimism could too easily be misplaced.
Peter Beck, of the International Crisis Group, said that Seoul was always looking for good news in the nuclear standoff.
"So when Seoul is cautious, it is a pretty good indication that there may be less than meets the eye here," he said.
It is time to arrange another mysterious explosion in N. Korea. This time, maybe something bigger than the one in Ryongchon over a year ago. You have Chinese (businessmen) crawling in N. Korea. Let them do some serious work this time, instead of just buying up a crappy N. Korean department store.
If you don't arrange something soon, Cheney and Rummy will arrange something on their own and you know what that means. A real bad news!
Ping!
You mean, this is a guy in the mirror staring back at you, who is exactly like you?
The game would be to sow so much confusion and pre-deals that the West will not know what to do once the test is either imminent or a fait accompli.
Why does l'il Kim remind me of a three year old throwing a temper tantrum while holding a loaded .45 alternately pointing it at his parents and at his own head?
Bush is giving it back exactly the same way. They are also confused about what Bush is up to. It gets interesting.
In the mean time, we see Saddam syndrome enveloping N. Korea. Communications to the outside are being cut. Increasing paranoia. All these would lead to the paralysis of command and control in military and in bureaucracy.
He is also wearing elevator shoes.:-)
Kim is an ugly little rat. North Korea is worthless. So are the majority of it's people.
Of all recent administrations, this administration would be my first choice to sort this mess.
In the mean time, we see Saddam syndrome enveloping N. Korea. Communications to the outside are being cut. Increasing paranoia. All these would lead to the paralysis of command and control in military and in bureaucracy.
I believe that the cutting of outside communications would be another indicator that a test is imminent.
Of course, with the nutty North Korean government, who knows? It could as equally presage the declaration of Kim Jong-il's successor, or even conceivably a new flower that the dictator has taken an interest in.
The people are beaten down, but I'd hardly say worthless. Once freed, they may be capable of extraordinary things.
Alrighty then...
Let's test the proposition that North Korea is NOT a "failed state", by suspending all our "food aid" -- which (obviously) a "successful state" would not need.
It might also be helpful to hold "7-Party Talks" -- with the "7th Party" consisting of representatives of a free and democratic FUTURE government of North Korea. Of course, that meeting would be held as scheduled -- even if tantrum-prone Pyongyang chose to "boycott" the meeting.
You know what? Chinese may hate it as much as N. Koreans.
As I am NOT a "diplomat", I can speak freely...
If China refuses to host a meeting to discuss the future of North Korea unless Pyongyang's toadies are present, then perhaps a scaled-down meeting could be held in Tokyo -- or Teipei...
Yes, I think the Chinese and maybe the South Koreans would be upset about a North Korean government-in-exile's attendance:
Defectors in Seoul Skeptical of NK Exile Government
Support From South Korea Needed for Establishment
By Reuben Staines, Park Song-wu
Staff ReportersNorth Korean defectors residing in South Korea on Wednesday expressed skepticism over an attempt to establish a North Korean government-in-exile in Japan to oppose Kim Jong-il's communist regime.
The heads of six associations of North Korean defectors reportedly agreed to set up a provisional government by March next year during a meeting in Tokyo Nov. 19-20.
But several prominent defectors in Seoul told The Korea Times that while they sympathize with any bid to democratize North Korea, they have reservations about the proposed government's political motives, support-base and chances of bringing about real change.
The movement, a coalition of defector groups in Japan, South Korea, China, Russia, Mongolia and Kazakhstan, consists mostly of former Pyongyang officials who fled the North more than three decades ago and have little contact with younger North Korean exiles, one defector said on condition of anonymity.
He recently helped organize a meeting between the members of an involved group in Japan and Hwang Jang-yop, the highest-ranked Pyongyang official to defect to the South, but said Hwang declined their offer to take the presidency of the government-in-exile.
``Although Hwang doesn't oppose this kind of attempt to set up a government-in-exile, he thinks South Korea should be the strategic base to promote democracy in North Korea,'' said the defector, who has been involved in promoting democracy in the North since settling in Seoul in 1999.
The 81-year-old Hwang, formerly secretary of the powerful Workers' Party in North Korea and the architect of the regime's ``Juche" doctrine of self-reliance, formed a North Korea democracy alliance in March last year in Seoul. He defected to South Korea in 1997.
Another defector also doubted whether the Japan-based government-in-exile would be able to unite North Korean defectors to raise their voices against Pyongyang's authoritarian leadership.
``If they fail to comprise all defectors in South Korea, including Hwang Jang-yop and other former diplomats or high-ranking officials, the movement in Japan will not be successful,'' he predicted.
Leaders in the movement include Park Gab-dong, standing committee chairman of the Japan-based National Salvation Front for Democratic Reunification of Korea, an 85-year-old former North Korean official who fled Pyongyang in 1957.
``Basically they are too old and don't have good channels with defectors who have recently fled North Korea and settled in South Korea,'' said the defector, who now works as a reporter in Seoul.
``We also can't understand what their ultimate goal is at the moment,'' he said.
However, Kim Sang-hun, a human rights worker who worked for the United Nations from 1975 to 1994, hopes the movement will produce a cohesive organization through which defectors can lobby for change in North Korea.
``There have been several attempts in the past which have not succeeded but I hope this latest effort can bring good results,'' he said.
Kim also believed there are no legal barriers to establishing the government-in-exile in Japan, although North Korea has been acknowledged as a legitimate state by international bodies such as the U.N.
He cited activities by Cubans living in the United States as a precedent. ``Legally there is no problem with setting up a government-in-exile in a foreign country,'' he said.
My hunch is this is just more BS and talk from North Korea and China intended to buy time while they finish developing a few nuclear weapons and complete a successful test. Those two screwed-up communist dictatorships are just lying to us and the world while they build more weapons to use to intimidate the West. What difference does it make whether we criticize Kim Jong Il? The truth is still what it is, whether we say it publicly or not. I wonder if the concept of truth still exists in North Korea and China.
I agree. This is just a game where the Chinese and North Koreans keep us hoping that there is some sort "deal" perhaps in the air, all the while the North Koreans are preparing to make their test. In the ensuing confusion after the test, they hope that the Bush administration will be suckered into thinking that China is actually helping us, while they are just laughing in their sleeve.
I think we need the "Oh No, Not THIS sh*t again" graphic of the guy with his face buried in his hands.
Unspecified conditions, my foot! They do this every damned time just before we start to go on a war footing.
You elevate the serious discussion on DPRK with FACTS much higher than the silly graphics of "So Ronery" that accompany the NK threads -- not that they aren't welcome, but we also want to get specific, real time information and projections that was just CANNOT get out of the brain dead, naive, charlatan Western Media about mysterious and dangerous North Korea.
Thanks again and 'komapsumnida'!
Like that idea Tiger rack ittt LOL!
Do you think Cheney or even Karl Rove set up last train explosion LOL!
"The remarks made by Rumsfeld against this backdrop can be uttered only by a stupid who does not know what is politics."
Carefull there lil kim, thats our Secretary of WAR you're
talking about.
Maybe they should be talking to X42 he knows what the meaning of "is" is.
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