North Korea may embrace six-way talks
North Korea is ready to embrace six-way multilateral talks over its nuclear weapons programme, according to Pyongyang’s ambassador to Russia, Pak Ui Chun.
Kim Jong-il’s reclusive communist state appears to have backtracked on a previous demand that it would only talk with the US and only in exchange for humanitarian aid and energy assistance.
The Bush administration says aid is there but only if North Korea ends its nuclear weapons programme first.
North Korea caused considerable consternation last October when, according to intelligence reports, she secretly enriched uranium, thereby reneging on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Since then Pyongyang announced it had reprocessed 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods, giving it the potential to make several nuclear bombs.
North Korea sits uncomfortably on President Bush’s “axis of evil.”
Pak Ui Chun made the announcement during a meeting with Moscow’s Deputy Foreign Minister Yury Fedotov.
Richard Boucher of the US State Department said the development was “very encouraging.”
The talk could begin in September and would bring together the US, China, both Koreas, Japan and Russia.
Mr Bush said he spoke with Chinese President Hu Jintao yesterday on the crisis on the Korean peninsula.
