North Korea: We want nuclear-free peninsula

North Korea’s envoy to international disarmament talks said today that his country was ready to work on eliminating atomic weapons from the Korean Peninsula, while the US reassured the communist nation that it had no intention of invading to end the nuclear stand-off.

“The fundamenal thing is to make real progress in realising the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula,” North Korean vice foreign minister Kim Kye Gwan said at the opening session of the revived talks in Beijing.

“This requires very firm political will and a strategic decision of the parties concerned that have interests in ending the threat of nuclear war,” he said. “We are fully ready and prepared for that.”

The talks are the fourth such six-nation negotiations, which also include China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the US. They are reconvening after a 13-month boycott by the North, which blamed “hostile” US policies.

North Korea agreed to return to the talks following a meeting earlier this month between Kim and the main US envoy, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, who assured North Korea that Washington recognised its sovereignty.

Today, Hill repeated those pledges.

“We view (North Korea’s) sovereignty as a matter of fact. The US has absolutely no intention to invade or attack,” Hill said in his opening remarks.

Unlike the previous rounds, which were planned for several days, no end-date has been set for this week’s resumed negotiations.

Hill said his delegation would remain in Beijing “so long as we are making progress in these talks”.

“We do not have the option of walking away from this problem,” he said.

Hill also said the US would address North Korea’s security and energy concerns after the nuclear issue was resolved.

“Nuclear weapons will not make (North Korea) more secure,” he said. “And in fact, on the contrary, nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula will only increase tension in the region.”

Neither the North Koreans nor the Americans offered any new proposals or concessions in their opening comments. South Korea’s envoy, deputy foreign minister Song Min-soon, repeated his nation’s offer of massive electricity aid to North Korea if it agreed to disarm.

The talks are the first in which Hill is representing Washington, and he is believed to have more room for negotiating than his predecessor, James Kelly. In a departure from previous meetings, Hill met his North Korean counterpart yesterday before the official opening of the talks.

The latest nuclear stand-off with North Korea erupted in late 2002, when US officials accused the country of running a secret uranium-enrichment programme.

Since then, North Korea has pulled out of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and taken steps that would allow it to harvest more radioactive materials for atomic bombs.

In February, North Korea publicly claimed it had nuclear weapons, but it has not performed any known tests that would confirm it can make them.

North Korea has demanded aid and security guarantees from Washington in exchange for giving up its nuclear weapons. The US says it will not offer concessions until North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme is verifiably dismantled.

Analysts have said they do not expect any breakthrough at this session, given the vast gap between the US and North Korean positions.

Another issue that could complicate the arms talks is Japan’s concerns about its citizens abducted by North Korea.

Tokyo’s envoy, Kenichiro Sasae, director of the Asia and Oceania Bureau at Japan’s Foreign Ministry, said his country was “unwaveringly committed” to eventually normalising relations with North Korea but did not directly say if he would raise the abduction issue.