U.S. President Barack Obama said today that he and Chinese President Hu Jintao were in agreement on the need for North Korea to return to stalled six-nation talks "as soon as possible," USA Today reported (see GSN, Oct. 16).
The two leaders addressed nuclear disarmament and other issues during meetings yesterday and today in Beijing.
"Both of us said that we will remain committed to dialogue and consultations in resolving the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue. And such approach serves the common interests of China, the United States, and other parties concerned," Hu said during a press conference with Obama. "The two sides will work with other parties concerned to continue the denuclearization process of the Korean Peninsula and six-party talks process in a bid to uphold the peace and stability in Northeast Asia."
Added Obama, in his first trip to Asia as president: "We agreed on the importance of resuming the six-party talks as soon as possible. ... North Korea has a choice: It can continue down the path of confrontation and provocation that has led to less security, less prosperity, and more isolation from the global community, or it can choose to become a full member of the international community, which will give a better life to its people by living up to international obligations and forgoing nuclear weapons."
The six-nation negotiations -- involving China, Japan, Russia, the United States and both Koreas -- were last conducted in December 2008. North Korea announced it was finished with the talks last spring after it was rebuked for an April missile launch. The isolated country then provoked further international ire by carrying out a second nuclear test. It has since sounded a more conciliatory tone, seemingly aimed at obtaining bilateral diplomacy with the United States.
China is a top ally to the North and is widely seen as key to drawing the Stalinist state back to the talks.
Obama said he was grateful for Chinese cooperation in nuclear nonproliferation efforts.
"I told [Hu] how appreciative I am of China's support for the global nonproliferation regime as well as the verifiable elimination of North Korea's nuclear weapons program," he said (David Jackson, USA Today, Nov. 17).
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei said today that Beijing anticipates a one-on-one meeting between Washington and Pyongyang shortly, Reuters reported.
U.S. special envoy Stephen Bosworth is expected to travel to Pyongyang this year for direct talks with North Korean officials on resumption of the nuclear negotiations.
"I expect that North Korea and the United States will soon hold talks, and from our perspective we encourage this," He said (Emma Graham-Harrison, Reuters/Washington Post, Nov. 17).
South Korea is also optimistic that Bosworth's impending trip will result in Pyongyang's rapid return to the six-party talks, Agence France-Presse reported.
"Our government hopes that the pending U.S.-North Korean contact will contribute positively to settling the North Korean nuclear issue through the quick resumption of the six-party talks," South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan said today.
Obama is set to travel to Seoul tomorrow for a meeting with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak. Yu said that the two presidents are expected to "exchange in-depth opinions about the North Korean nuclear issue and the policy on North Korea in general."
Yu said he did not believe that any "substantive negotiations" would take place during Bosworth's trip to Pyongyang.
"We will maintain the current policy of employing both dialogue and sanctions to make diplomatic efforts to realize the complete denuclearization of North Korea through six-party talks," the foreign minister said (Agence France-Presse I/Saigon Daily, Nov. 17).
Meanwhile, Pyongyang today switched gears in its rhetoric toward South Korea, AFP reported. In the past few days, North Korea's military threatened harsh punitive action against the South after the two countries engaged in a brief naval clash last week over disputed waters in the Yellow Sea.
"It entirely depends on the attitude of the South Korean authorities whether or not inter-Korean relations continue to deteriorate," the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper said.
"We will continue to make active efforts, as we did before, for the improvement of North-South relations," the newspaper said, adding that relations could not be normalized with the South so long as "one party distrusts its dialogue partner and escalates confrontation and even carries out a military provocation" (Agence France-Presse II/Spacewar.com, Nov. 17).
Elsewhere, the U.S. Commerce Department released statistics that show that U.S. trade shipments to North Korea decreased significantly this year as a result of Security Council sanctions imposed upon Pyongyang as punishment for its recent nuclear and missile tests, the Yonhap News Agency reported
From January to July, the United States exported only $400,000 worth of goods to the impoverished North. That is a marked difference from the $52.2 million exported to North Korea from April to December of last year (Hwang Doo-hyong, Yonhap News Agency, Nov. 16).