US will not accept 'pretend' agreement

The US served notice on North Korea today that it would not accept an agreement that only pretends to halt its nuclear weapons programme.

The tough statement was in response to North Korea’s attempt to retain the right to civilian nuclear activities in six-nation negotiations in Beijing.

“We can’t have a situation where the DPRK pretends to abandon its nuclear weapons programme and we pretend to believe them,” State Department spokesman Tom Casey said.

“We need an agreement that is clear and precise,” he said as negotiations on a proposed statement of principle sputtered on a 10th day of talks.

However, the State Department did not rule out chances of achieving an agreement on a statement that could lay the foundation for an overall accord.

“We hope we can agree on this,” he said. “We have to see what happens. We will see if we can get there by the end of the day.”

Once again, the chief US negotiator, Christopher Hill, met separately with his North Korean counterpart as well as with the heads of the delegations from China, South Korea, Japan and Russia.

The six delegation heads also held a joint meeting.

While the Bush administration initially took a strong stand against one-on-one negotiations practised by the Clinton administration it is pursuing that approach in the context of the six-nation format.

Having been denounced by President Bush as part of an “axis of evil,” and its leader Kim Jong Il dismissed by former US negotiator John Bolton as a “tyrannical rogue,” North Korea was credited last week by the administration with being co-operative in the talks in China and agreeing that the Korean peninsula should be denuclearised.

North Korea is putting ideas on the table that could contribute to the foundation of an eventual agreement, and the atmosphere is different in the new round of talks, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said last Friday.

“I think all would agree that we have a continuing good atmosphere,” McCormack said after another one-on-one meeting between US negotiator Christopher Hill and his North Korean counterpart.

But this week the State Department put a clamp on compliments as the talks appear headed toward an impasse.

Still, Casey said Thursday, “We’re continuing to work in a constructive manner.”