BeautifulDisaster - banned
10-19-2006, 10:47 AM
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A North Korean soldier stands on duty along the waterfront of the North Korean city of Sinuiju, opposite the Chinese border city of Dandong in northeast China, Thursday, Oct. 19, 2006. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in South Korea on Thursday to push Seoul to fully support sanctions against North Korea, while Chinese envoys were apparently in Pyongyang warning the reclusive country against more nuclear tests. China could play the most important role in restraining the North because the Chinese have long been the impoverished nation's closest ally and its biggest source of trade and fuel. (Ng Han Guan / AP)
BEIJING -- A Chinese envoy met North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and delivered a personal message from President Hu Jintao on Thursday in the highest-level Chinese visit to its isolated ally since the North's nuclear test last week.
A North Korean general, meanwhile, told ABC News that Pyongyang's nuclear weapons were defensive only and would not be sold to third parties, but he added that war on the peninsula was inevitable if President Bush continues to ask the country to "kneel."
The meeting with Kim by State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan came as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was making an Asian tour to push for cooperation in enforcing U.N. sanctions for the North's Oct. 9 blast amid signs that Pyongyang may be preparing a second atomic test.
She said the United States wants to lower tensions, not aggravate them.
"We want to leave open the path of negotiation. We don't want the crisis to escalate," Rice told reporters in Seoul.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said he had no details of the message conveyed by Tang in Pyongyang, but said Kim and the diplomat had "in-depth discussions" about the nuclear dispute. North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency said Tang also brought a gift for Kim but did not say what it was.
Tang's trip might be a way for Beijing to express frustration at the test and warn against conducting any more while wooing it back to six-party talks on the North's nuclear program.
But relations between North Korea and China, the main source of food and fuel aid to its decrepit economy, have deteriorated in recent years, and Beijing's influence over Pyongyang appears to be eroding.
"This is a very significant visit, against the backdrop of major changes on the Korean Peninsula," Liu said at a regular news briefing. "We hope China's diplomatic efforts ... will bear fruit."
Washington hoped that Tang delivered a stern warning to the North Koreans about more atomic blasts, said a senior U.S. official speaking to reporters on Rice's plane as she traveled to Seoul from Tokyo.
"I'm pretty convinced that the Chinese will have a very strong message about future tests," said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity, due to the sensitivity of the issue.
Tang, a former foreign minister whose Cabinet post ranks above minister, was accompanied by Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo and Wu Dawei, the Chinese envoy to the six-nation nuclear disarmament talks.
A day after Bush said Pyongyang would face "a grave consequence" if it transferred nuclear weapons to Iran or al-Qaida, North Korean Gen. Ri Chan Bok told ABC that the arms were to defend the country and not to earn money or be transferred to third parties.
"We have nuclear weapons to defend our country and our people," said Ri, chief of the Korean People's Army Panmunjom mission.
Ri told ABC that Bush wants North Korea to "kneel" but that the communist country cannot agree to that.
If that continues, he said, "war will be inevitable," ABC correspondent Diane Sawyer quoted Ri as saying.
"He keeps talking about North Korea as the 'axis of evil,' as an outpost of tyranny, as an unacceptable government that makes its own people hungry," Ri told ABC. "We would ask him please to stop making these bad comments on our nation, and I'm speaking not just for myself but for all people in this country."
Ri also told ABC that North Korea did not care if negotiations are bilateral or as part of six-party talks, but that sanctions against country must be lifted for progress to begin.
Discussions involving the United States, host China, the two Koreas, Japan and Russia have been stalled for a year because of a boycott by the North over U.S. financial sanctions.
Rice was to arrive in Beijing Friday for meetings with Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing and other Chinese officials.
"We look forward to in-depth discussions with Secretary Rice and hope we can work toward easing the situation and achieve denuclearization through consultation and dialogue," Liu said.
The rush of diplomatic exchanges has sparked speculation that a larger conference was imminent. But Liu said he could not confirm news reports of a planned meeting in Beijing of officials from the six governments in the nuclear talks.
China, a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council with power to veto U.N. actions, is traditionally reluctant to punish the North. But it voted last weekend for the resolution imposing sanctions in response to the nuclear test.
Beijing has since warned its neighbor against taking any steps that would heighten tensions.
However, Beijing's U.N. ambassador has indicated that inspectors will not board ships to search for equipment or material that can be used to make nuclear, chemical and biological weapons or ballistic missiles. China and South Korea worry that the North would consider the action provocative.
The U.N. resolution "is a balanced resolution and the spirit must also be reflected in its implementation," Liu said. "The parties, while implementing it, should not try to expand the sanctions mandated by the resolution."
Liu said that while China will "implement in earnest" the sanctions, they were not an end in themselves.
"They are rather the means to an end, which is to solve the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula in a peaceful way," he said.
On Thursday, Rice met in Seoul with President Roh Moo-hyun and Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon, who is slated to be the next U.N. secretary-general.
While South Korea and the United States expressed a united front against the nuclear test and support of U.N. sanctions, Seoul showed no signs that it would immediately move to adopt Washington's hard-line approach to dealing with Pyongyang.
Rice said she didn't mean to pressure the South to take any specific steps, but said that "everyone should take stock of the leverage we have to get North Korea to return to the six-party talks."
Rice, Ban and Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso also met, reaffirming security commitments and calling on the North to return to nuclear talks. The sides agreed to "strongly reject another nuclear test by North Korea and its possession of nuclear" weapons, Aso told reporters.
The South has faced criticism for a pair of landmark inter-Korean projects -- a tourism venture and joint economic zone, both in North Korea -- that are symbols of hopes for the peninsula's reunification.
Ban said Seoul would consider adjusting those projects to have them come in line with the U.N. sanctions. He also said he explained the merits of the industrial zone to facilitate reforms in the communist nation, and that he believed the U.S. understood.
While visiting Tokyo on Wednesday, Rice said the U.S. was willing to use its full military might to defend Japan in light of the North's nuclear test. She also sought to assure Asian countries there is no need to jump into a nuclear arms race.
Rice also made the same assurances to Seoul that Washington stands behind its pledge to defend the country if the North attacked.
A North Korean soldier stands on duty along the waterfront of the North Korean city of Sinuiju, opposite the Chinese border city of Dandong in northeast China, Thursday, Oct. 19, 2006. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in South Korea on Thursday to push Seoul to fully support sanctions against North Korea, while Chinese envoys were apparently in Pyongyang warning the reclusive country against more nuclear tests. China could play the most important role in restraining the North because the Chinese have long been the impoverished nation's closest ally and its biggest source of trade and fuel. (Ng Han Guan / AP)
BEIJING -- A Chinese envoy met North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and delivered a personal message from President Hu Jintao on Thursday in the highest-level Chinese visit to its isolated ally since the North's nuclear test last week.
A North Korean general, meanwhile, told ABC News that Pyongyang's nuclear weapons were defensive only and would not be sold to third parties, but he added that war on the peninsula was inevitable if President Bush continues to ask the country to "kneel."
The meeting with Kim by State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan came as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was making an Asian tour to push for cooperation in enforcing U.N. sanctions for the North's Oct. 9 blast amid signs that Pyongyang may be preparing a second atomic test.
She said the United States wants to lower tensions, not aggravate them.
"We want to leave open the path of negotiation. We don't want the crisis to escalate," Rice told reporters in Seoul.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said he had no details of the message conveyed by Tang in Pyongyang, but said Kim and the diplomat had "in-depth discussions" about the nuclear dispute. North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency said Tang also brought a gift for Kim but did not say what it was.
Tang's trip might be a way for Beijing to express frustration at the test and warn against conducting any more while wooing it back to six-party talks on the North's nuclear program.
But relations between North Korea and China, the main source of food and fuel aid to its decrepit economy, have deteriorated in recent years, and Beijing's influence over Pyongyang appears to be eroding.
"This is a very significant visit, against the backdrop of major changes on the Korean Peninsula," Liu said at a regular news briefing. "We hope China's diplomatic efforts ... will bear fruit."
Washington hoped that Tang delivered a stern warning to the North Koreans about more atomic blasts, said a senior U.S. official speaking to reporters on Rice's plane as she traveled to Seoul from Tokyo.
"I'm pretty convinced that the Chinese will have a very strong message about future tests," said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity, due to the sensitivity of the issue.
Tang, a former foreign minister whose Cabinet post ranks above minister, was accompanied by Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo and Wu Dawei, the Chinese envoy to the six-nation nuclear disarmament talks.
A day after Bush said Pyongyang would face "a grave consequence" if it transferred nuclear weapons to Iran or al-Qaida, North Korean Gen. Ri Chan Bok told ABC that the arms were to defend the country and not to earn money or be transferred to third parties.
"We have nuclear weapons to defend our country and our people," said Ri, chief of the Korean People's Army Panmunjom mission.
Ri told ABC that Bush wants North Korea to "kneel" but that the communist country cannot agree to that.
If that continues, he said, "war will be inevitable," ABC correspondent Diane Sawyer quoted Ri as saying.
"He keeps talking about North Korea as the 'axis of evil,' as an outpost of tyranny, as an unacceptable government that makes its own people hungry," Ri told ABC. "We would ask him please to stop making these bad comments on our nation, and I'm speaking not just for myself but for all people in this country."
Ri also told ABC that North Korea did not care if negotiations are bilateral or as part of six-party talks, but that sanctions against country must be lifted for progress to begin.
Discussions involving the United States, host China, the two Koreas, Japan and Russia have been stalled for a year because of a boycott by the North over U.S. financial sanctions.
Rice was to arrive in Beijing Friday for meetings with Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing and other Chinese officials.
"We look forward to in-depth discussions with Secretary Rice and hope we can work toward easing the situation and achieve denuclearization through consultation and dialogue," Liu said.
The rush of diplomatic exchanges has sparked speculation that a larger conference was imminent. But Liu said he could not confirm news reports of a planned meeting in Beijing of officials from the six governments in the nuclear talks.
China, a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council with power to veto U.N. actions, is traditionally reluctant to punish the North. But it voted last weekend for the resolution imposing sanctions in response to the nuclear test.
Beijing has since warned its neighbor against taking any steps that would heighten tensions.
However, Beijing's U.N. ambassador has indicated that inspectors will not board ships to search for equipment or material that can be used to make nuclear, chemical and biological weapons or ballistic missiles. China and South Korea worry that the North would consider the action provocative.
The U.N. resolution "is a balanced resolution and the spirit must also be reflected in its implementation," Liu said. "The parties, while implementing it, should not try to expand the sanctions mandated by the resolution."
Liu said that while China will "implement in earnest" the sanctions, they were not an end in themselves.
"They are rather the means to an end, which is to solve the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula in a peaceful way," he said.
On Thursday, Rice met in Seoul with President Roh Moo-hyun and Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon, who is slated to be the next U.N. secretary-general.
While South Korea and the United States expressed a united front against the nuclear test and support of U.N. sanctions, Seoul showed no signs that it would immediately move to adopt Washington's hard-line approach to dealing with Pyongyang.
Rice said she didn't mean to pressure the South to take any specific steps, but said that "everyone should take stock of the leverage we have to get North Korea to return to the six-party talks."
Rice, Ban and Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso also met, reaffirming security commitments and calling on the North to return to nuclear talks. The sides agreed to "strongly reject another nuclear test by North Korea and its possession of nuclear" weapons, Aso told reporters.
The South has faced criticism for a pair of landmark inter-Korean projects -- a tourism venture and joint economic zone, both in North Korea -- that are symbols of hopes for the peninsula's reunification.
Ban said Seoul would consider adjusting those projects to have them come in line with the U.N. sanctions. He also said he explained the merits of the industrial zone to facilitate reforms in the communist nation, and that he believed the U.S. understood.
While visiting Tokyo on Wednesday, Rice said the U.S. was willing to use its full military might to defend Japan in light of the North's nuclear test. She also sought to assure Asian countries there is no need to jump into a nuclear arms race.
Rice also made the same assurances to Seoul that Washington stands behind its pledge to defend the country if the North attacked.