NKorea should seize 'tremendous opportunity': US envoy

SEOUL, Sept 30, 2009 (AFP) - A top US envoy urged North Korea Wednesday to seize a "tremendous opportunity" and return to six-party nuclear disarmament talks, but Pyongyang's official media said it was up to Washington to resolve the issue.

"There is a tremendous opportunity now for them to take a constructive measure," Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg told reporters, asked if the North shows any sign of returning to the six-party forum it quit in April.


"They've certainly given some indications that they understand the value of re-engagement," Steinberg said, after talks with South Korean officials during a five-nation regional tour.

"We would like to see them take advantage of that."

Steinberg reiterated Washington's stance that it is willing to hold direct talks with Pyongyang but only to bring it back to the six-nation forum.

"It's important for North Korea to make clear that it's prepared to engage on those terms," he said.

The talks group the two Koreas, the United States, China, Russia and Japan. Pyongyang quit the forum in protest at United Nations censure of its long-range rocket launch on April 5.

It staged a second atomic weapons test in May, incurring stronger UN sanctions supported even by its closest ally, China.

The North wants direct talks with Washington on the nuclear standoff.

"The nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula should be settled between the DPRK (North Korea) and the US from every aspect as it is a product of the latter's hostile policy toward the former," the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said in a commentary.

The agency, echoing the North's comments to the UN General Assembly Monday, said it was a "pipedream" to expect it to denuclearise until the US changes its policy.

"The nuclear issue can find a genuine solution only when the whole Korean peninsula and the rest of the world are denuclearised," it added.

Steinberg, who has visited Vietnam, Malaysia and China and goes on to Japan later Wednesday, said six-party members had no differences on how to proceed.

He denied any divergence with South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak, who this month proposed a "grand bargain" with the North.

This would involve massive aid and security guarantees in return for denuclearisation, rather than the step-by-step measures of the past.

"What we all agree is that we've lived through the history before of partial measures and reversible measures," Steinberg said. "What we need is a comprehensive and definitive resolution of the nuclear question."

The KCNA commentary derided the "grand bargain" as "rubbish" and said Lee is trying to obstruct a solution between Washington and Pyongyang.

Lee said separately that Seoul should make its voice heard in nuclear negotiations.

"The North Korean nuclear issue, though it is an issue of concern for the US and China and the world, is indeed an inter-Korean issue," he told a press conference.

"However, our voice has not been heard enough and talks have only been centred on proposals presented by the US and China."


by Mouctar Bah
(c) 2009 AFP