N.Korea brings laundry list of demands to talks

reuters

North Korea set out sweeping demands on Monday for scrapping its nuclear arms and the United States warned that its patience was running out — an inauspicious start to six-party talks after a year-long hiatus.

Addressing the six-party forum at the first talks since the North’s October 9 nuclear test, Pyongyang’s chief envoy demanded an end to U.N. sanctions and U.S. financial curbs and the grant of a nuclear reactor before it would consider disarmament.

In response to this “exhaustive list”, chief U.S. envoy Christopher Hill warned that Washington’s patience had “reached its limits”.

North Korea’s opening speech took a “department store approach”, presenting “an exhaustive list of all its demands” and demanding that Washington end its “hostile policy” before Pyongyang would agree to rein in its nuclear programs, a South Korean official told reporters.

But Hill said that North Korea was at a fork in the road and needed to give ground.

“We don’t have the option of walking away from the problem,” Hill said. “Their future is very much at stake.”

“We do need to see some results,” he said.

A one-on-one meeting expected between the U.S. and North Koreans on Monday did not take place.

Washington, along with host China, South Korea, Japan and Russia, want to see North Korea take concrete steps to implement a joint statement agreed in September 2005.

In that statement, North Korea agreed in principle to give up nuclear weapons in return for aid and security guarantees.

But North Korean chief negotiator Kim Kye-gwan said his country would not consider implementing the agreement until U.S. and United Nations financial sanctions on it were lifted, the source said.

Washington imposed its financial curbs more than a year ago after determining that Pyongyang was engaged in money-laundering and counterfeiting American currency. The U.N. leveled sanctions in October after condemning the North’s nuclear test.

A separate U.S. Treasury Department delegation is expected to meet the North Koreans to discuss the financial standoff.

TOUGH STANCE

Kim said it was his country’s ultimate goal to abandon its nuclear programs, but he also demanded the North be provided with a light-water nuclear reactor to meet its civilian energy needs and substitute energy aid until the reactor is completed in order for it to begin doing so, the source said.

Analysts had expected an emboldened North Korea, which now calls itself a nuclear state, to stake out a tough position and had cautioned that swift compromise was unlikely.

“The issues to be discussed and addressed by this meeting are complex and profound, and the tasks borne by all the parties are both glorious and arduous,” Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei told delegates.

A South Korean official said the North’s tough line was an expected negotiating position.

“They just said what they wanted to say and made all the demands it can think of,” the official said. “They will become a bit more realistic (as the talks progress).”

Despite the challenges, the United States and Japan both insisted that they wanted to see progress.

“We demand North Korea take prompt action in line with promises it made in the joint statement so that the international community can be assured of the credibility of North Korea’s commitments,” Sasae said.

In Tokyo, Japanese Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma told Reuters North Korea was the biggest threat facing his country, calling it “unpredictable” and saying its nuclear program made Japan “uneasy”.

Despite the unpromising start, Hill said he hoped to be home for Christmas, avoiding a marathon session at the hexagonal negotiating table.