Michele Kearney's Nuclear Wire

Major Energy and Environmental News and Commentary affecting the Nuclear Industry.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

North Korea in Agreement With China on Nuke Talks

North Korea announced yesterday it had reached common ground with China on restarting stalled multilateral nuclear negotiations, Reuters reported (see GSN, Aug. 19).
Beijing dispatched a senior diplomat to Pyongyang this week for discussions on reinvigorating the long-stalled six-party talks that also involve Japan, South Korea, Russia and the United States. China is North Korea's top foreign ally and has called on nations to "flip the page" on the March sinking of a South Korean warship and to resume negotiations aimed at ending Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program.
Agreements reached during the talks propose to reward Pyongyang's permanent nuclear disarmament with large infusions of economic aid and security guarantees. As part of the six-party process, North Korea took several denuclearization steps only to reverse course in April 2009 when it abandoned the negotiations and then detonated a second nuclear test device.
China and North Korea held "in-depth discussions on the regional situation and the bilateral relations of friendship and matters of mutual concern including the resumption of the six-party talks and the denuclearization of the whole Korean Peninsula," Pyongyang's state-controlled Korean Central News Agency said. "They reached a full consensus of views on all the matters discussed."
Seoul and Washington have accused the North of carrying out a submarine attack on the Cheonan and have resisted Beijing's prodding to return to the regional talks. They are insisting that North Korea first take some permanent nuclear disarmament measures (Jeremy Laurence, Reuters I, Aug. 20).
The Stalinist state, meanwhile, has demanded to be freed from international sanctions and to conduct peace treaty talks with the United States as preconditions to resuming the nuclear negotiations.
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