US pinpoints Pyongyang threat
In Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on Wednesday, US Secretary of State Colin Powell claimed there was ‘no issue of greater urgency to the US’ than North Korea’s thirst for nuclear weapons.
Mr. Powell’s comments come as Pyongyang on Wednesday said it may accelerate its nuclear weapons programme and rejected calls for multilateral dialogue with the US, North Korea, China, Japan and South Korea.
North Korea wants to talk turkey with the US and the US alone. It wants from President Bush’s administration security guarantees and economic aid in exchange for curtailing its nuclear ambitions.
North Korea knows full well it occupies a conspicuous space on Bush’s ‘axis of evil’, alongside nuclear ambitious Iran and belligerent Iraq.
Pyongyang said it wished to strengthen its nuclear deterrent programme as a precautionary self-defence measure to ward off the threat from alien foes.
Mr. Powell, at a meeting of foreign ministers at the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit, said he was determined to smooth out the escalation of words between the isolated communist state, Seoul and other Asian neighbours.
‘The sooner North Korea realises this and agrees to an expanded forum, the sooner we may find a way to solve this problem. We can’t help a North Korea that does not abandon the goal of having nuclear weapons,’ he said.
Mr. Powell insisted North Korea’s nuclear weapons development was ‘not a bilateral matter between the United States and North Korea. It affects every nation in the region that would fall under the arc of a North Korean missile.’
Mr. Powell is expected to visit Israel and the Palestinian territories on Friday, after finishing an economic conference in Jordan on Thursday night.
