UN Intensifies Efforts To Bring DPR Of Korea Back To Nuclear Talks, Envoy Says
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea's (DPRK) withdrawal from six-party talks on its nuclear weapons programme is
"a very real bump in the road" and the United Nations is intensifying efforts to secure a resumption of negotiations
since the alternative to a peaceful solution is "so horrendous," the top UN envoy on the issue said today.
"The Secretary-General is deeply concerned. He's instructed me to intensify our efforts at supporting the resumption of
the six-party process," Kofi Annan's Personal Envoy to the DPRK, Maurice Strong, told a news briefing in New York,
noting that economic and other incentives were vital to securing an end to the weapons programme.
"I expect that there will be peaceful resolution because the consequences of not resolving this issue are so horrendous
for all parties that that itself provides a strong incentive to overcome the deep-seated distrust and hostility that has
been built up over the last 50 years between the parties and particularly between the principal parties, or the most
contentious parties - the DPRK and the United States," he said.
The DPRK announced yesterday that it was pulling out of the so-called Beijing process, the six-party talks between
itself and the Republic of Korea, China, Japan, the Russian Federation and the United States, stating publicly for the
first time that it already has nuclear weapons in a programme the talks seek to end.
Mr. Strong, who was meeting the DPRK's Permanent Representative to the UN later today, said he was not surprised by the
weapons claim, which Pyongyang has previously made privately, noting that the talks had not actually been cancelled.
"The DPRK has simply said it is not prepared to continue to participate in them under the conditions that they have
described [hostile US statements], but they have not annulled those and I believe that we should regard this not as the
end of a negotiating process but as a blip. Difficult yes, an unhappy twist in the road but nevertheless the road to
negotiations still runs through the six-party talks," he stated.
He said very few people close to the situation were surprised at anything but the timing of the weapons claim. "They
have not explicitly said in public but they have said in their private discussions with the six parties that they do
have nuclear weapons and this has simply been affirmed now more publicly in the statement they made," he added.
"It's a disappointment, yes, that they placed a stress on it. But I remind you again that they have made it clear that
they are committed to a peaceful settlement of the problem. They, too want, or at least are committed to a nuclear
weapons-free Korean peninsula."
But, he stressed, they insist that their national requirements be met and that some of the restrictions against their
full participation in the international economy also be lifted. "The work which the Secretary-General is doing with
which he has entrusted me is designed to be fully supportive of the six-party talks, recognizing that you're not going
to get a peaceful resolution of the nuclear weapons issue without an economic and energy component," he said.