North Korean Nuke Program a "Serious Concern" for IAEA Head
North Korea's nuclear program is "a matter of serious concern," the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said today (see GSN, Sept. 17).
U.N. nuclear watchdog Director General Yukiya Amano called on "all parties concerned to make concerted efforts for a resumption of the six-party talks at an appropriate time," the Associated Press reported.
The six-party talks involve China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the United States. Nuclear negotiations were last held in December 2008. Since then, Pyongyang has carried out missile and nuclear tests and been punished with heightened U.N. Security Council sanctions (Associated Press/New York Times, Sept. 20).
"The agency has had no inspectors in the country since April last year, and I therefore have nothing to report on any activities of the IAEA in relation to the D.P.R.K," Amano said at the beginning of this week's IAEA General Conference. "The D.P.R.K. has not permitted the agency to implement safeguards in the country since December 2002 and it has not implemented the relevant measures called for in Security Council resolutions 1718 and 1874" (International Atomic Energy Agency release, Sept. 20).
U.S. President Barack Obama is expected to address worries about the North's nuclear-weapon program during meetings with world leaders this week at the U.N. General Assembly in New York, the Yonhap News Agency reported.
"The president, I think, has a number of important meetings," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said. "One with China, one with Japan and one with a larger group of Asian nations. I think many of the issues that we talked about last year at the United Nations remain on the docket: concern about Iran, concern about North Korea."
Obama is expected to speak with with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao about the aspiring nuclear power and other matters, U.S. special envoy for North Korea Stephen Bosworth said last week while concluding a series of meetings in Seoul, Beijing and Tokyo.
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said U.S. officials would not have direct contact with North Korean officials at the General Assembly meeting. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, though, would be meeting with the foreign ministers of other participants in the six-nation talks, he said (Hwang Doo-hyong, Yonhap News Agency, Sept. 17).
China, North Korea's historical ally and international defender, was said to concur with the Obama administration that Pyongyang must demonstrate its commitment to a 2005 denuclearization pledge before multilateral nuclear negotiations can be relaunched, Agence France-Presse reported today.
Following a recent conversation with Beijing's senior envoy to the stalled talks, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg said today, "I think that there is a recognition that there is simply little value in moving forward without some very concrete indication that the North Koreans are interested in implementing the 2005 statement."
"And the Chinese were very clear on that. There was no disagreement at all," Steinberg told a Washington audience.
"They realize that given what's happened on a number of fronts -- both with the actions of the North Koreans last year and then following the Cheonan -- that we are not simply going to go back to talking," he continued (Agence France-Presse I/Google News, Sept. 20).
Meanwhile, Seoul yesterday offered to hold one-on-one military talks with the North on Sept. 30, but said it wanted only to consider matters related to the March sinking of the South Korean warship. Forty-six South Korean sailors died in the incident that badly damaged relations between the two longtime antagonists, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
Pyongyang last week proposed holding military talks with the South this Friday at a village in the border between the nations. Such discussions were last conducted in October 2008.
In its communication to Pyongyang, Seoul said the talks should center on "responsible measures" the North should pursue to improve inter-Korean relations, the South Korean Defense Ministry announced in a release (Xinhua News Agency, Sept. 19).
Elsewhere, a South Korean official yesterday said the North in 2009 increased deployments of armaments along its southern frontier even though the country was dealing with a financial crisis, thus proving "that its intention of military threat to the South remains unchanged," AFP reported.
Roughly 200 extra units of 240-millimeter rocket launchers were fielded near the border. The rocket launcher can fire as many as 22 rounds in a 35-minute period and can hit targets at a distance of 37 miles. It is considered a "core threat" to Seoul and the surrounding area, Yonhap reported.
In a 2008 analysis, the South Korean Defense Ministry said the North had some 3,900 tanks and 8,500 munition guns (Agence France-Presse II/Google News, Sept. 19).
In Pyongyang, the North Korean regime might have postponed a key political conference as the result of unresolved concerns over a widely reported plan to transfer power from ailing leader Kim Jong Il to his youngest son, Kim Jong Un, the Korea Herald reported yesterday.
"There is the possibility that the issues of publicly anointing Kim Jong Un as the heir and personnel appointment for the son
U.N. nuclear watchdog Director General Yukiya Amano called on "all parties concerned to make concerted efforts for a resumption of the six-party talks at an appropriate time," the Associated Press reported.
The six-party talks involve China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the United States. Nuclear negotiations were last held in December 2008. Since then, Pyongyang has carried out missile and nuclear tests and been punished with heightened U.N. Security Council sanctions (Associated Press/New York Times, Sept. 20).
"The agency has had no inspectors in the country since April last year, and I therefore have nothing to report on any activities of the IAEA in relation to the D.P.R.K," Amano said at the beginning of this week's IAEA General Conference. "The D.P.R.K. has not permitted the agency to implement safeguards in the country since December 2002 and it has not implemented the relevant measures called for in Security Council resolutions 1718 and 1874" (International Atomic Energy Agency release, Sept. 20).
U.S. President Barack Obama is expected to address worries about the North's nuclear-weapon program during meetings with world leaders this week at the U.N. General Assembly in New York, the Yonhap News Agency reported.
"The president, I think, has a number of important meetings," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said. "One with China, one with Japan and one with a larger group of Asian nations. I think many of the issues that we talked about last year at the United Nations remain on the docket: concern about Iran, concern about North Korea."
Obama is expected to speak with with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao about the aspiring nuclear power and other matters, U.S. special envoy for North Korea Stephen Bosworth said last week while concluding a series of meetings in Seoul, Beijing and Tokyo.
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said U.S. officials would not have direct contact with North Korean officials at the General Assembly meeting. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, though, would be meeting with the foreign ministers of other participants in the six-nation talks, he said (Hwang Doo-hyong, Yonhap News Agency, Sept. 17).
China, North Korea's historical ally and international defender, was said to concur with the Obama administration that Pyongyang must demonstrate its commitment to a 2005 denuclearization pledge before multilateral nuclear negotiations can be relaunched, Agence France-Presse reported today.
Following a recent conversation with Beijing's senior envoy to the stalled talks, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg said today, "I think that there is a recognition that there is simply little value in moving forward without some very concrete indication that the North Koreans are interested in implementing the 2005 statement."
"And the Chinese were very clear on that. There was no disagreement at all," Steinberg told a Washington audience.
"They realize that given what's happened on a number of fronts -- both with the actions of the North Koreans last year and then following the Cheonan -- that we are not simply going to go back to talking," he continued (Agence France-Presse I/Google News, Sept. 20).
Meanwhile, Seoul yesterday offered to hold one-on-one military talks with the North on Sept. 30, but said it wanted only to consider matters related to the March sinking of the South Korean warship. Forty-six South Korean sailors died in the incident that badly damaged relations between the two longtime antagonists, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
Pyongyang last week proposed holding military talks with the South this Friday at a village in the border between the nations. Such discussions were last conducted in October 2008.
In its communication to Pyongyang, Seoul said the talks should center on "responsible measures" the North should pursue to improve inter-Korean relations, the South Korean Defense Ministry announced in a release (Xinhua News Agency, Sept. 19).
Elsewhere, a South Korean official yesterday said the North in 2009 increased deployments of armaments along its southern frontier even though the country was dealing with a financial crisis, thus proving "that its intention of military threat to the South remains unchanged," AFP reported.
Roughly 200 extra units of 240-millimeter rocket launchers were fielded near the border. The rocket launcher can fire as many as 22 rounds in a 35-minute period and can hit targets at a distance of 37 miles. It is considered a "core threat" to Seoul and the surrounding area, Yonhap reported.
In a 2008 analysis, the South Korean Defense Ministry said the North had some 3,900 tanks and 8,500 munition guns (Agence France-Presse II/Google News, Sept. 19).
In Pyongyang, the North Korean regime might have postponed a key political conference as the result of unresolved concerns over a widely reported plan to transfer power from ailing leader Kim Jong Il to his youngest son, Kim Jong Un, the Korea Herald reported yesterday.
"There is the possibility that the issues of publicly anointing Kim Jong Un as the heir and personnel appointment for the son
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