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China envoy in N. Korea to discuss nuke talks
China's Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei arrived Saturday in Pyongyang in hopes of setting a date for the next round of six-nation talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons program, AFP reported. The multi-party negotiations aimed at getting North Korea to renounce atomic weapons were set to resume in late August after a three-week recess, but there has been uncertainty about the exact starting date. Wu will be in North Korea until Tuesday, Chinese foreign ministry sources said, for talks on bilateral relations and the nuclear talks. North Korea has long caused concern in Washington and among its regional neighbors with its nuclear program, and it raised the stakes in February by declaring it had produced nuclear weapons and would manufacture more. US President George W. Bush has named North Korea as part of an "axis of evil", while Pyongyang has labelled the United States an imperialist aggressor nation and worse, accusing it of planning to invade North Korea. International talks on defusing the crisis on the Korean peninsula resumed in July after the war of words between Washington and Pyongyang had led to a break of more than one year. But after nearly two weeks of sometimes heated and late-night negotiations, the talks broke off on August 7, and the key sticking point remained: whether North Korea should be allowed to run peaceful nuclear programs for energy use. The United States has ruled out North Korea being allowed to operate light-water nuclear reactors to produce energy, but South Korea has said the North should have the right to maintain a civilian nuclear program. Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura said: "We are not seeing a breakthrough yet on the issue of peaceful use of nuclear power. This is difficult." South Korea has offered to supply its neighbor with electricity should it renounce nuclear weapons. During the three-week break, the United States and North Korea, which have no diplomatic relations, have continued talks through the "New York channel", where US officials meet delegates from Pyongyang's UN mission. Xinhua news agency has reported North Korean threats to pull out of the talks due to the military exercises this week. "The fact that the US launched the military exercises on the eve of the resumption of the six-party talks that had gone into temporary recess cannot be construed otherwise than an attempt to force (North Korea) to accept its unjust demand," North Korea's foreign ministry spokesman was quoted as saying. "We have shown utmost magnanimity and flexibility with regards to the issue of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula, but we will never do such a thing as yielding to anyone's pressure and abandoning our sovereign right," he said. Meanwhile, speculation continued on if and when the talks will resume. According to a Friday report by the Russian Interfax news agency, North Korea was to decide by Monday whether to resume the talks. The decision would follow a meeting between US and North Korean diplomats in an unspecified location, it said, citing North Korean sources in Hong Kong. "It is planned to hold the fourth meeting of diplomatic representatives of North Korea and the United States at a fairly high level," it said. "And during this meeting the date and outlines of the resumption of the fourth round (of multi-party talks) should be settled," Interfax said.
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