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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (686071)	6/17/2005 8:13:14 PM
From: Hope Praytochange	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

N. Korea Vows to Return to Nuclear Talks By Joohee Cho Special to the Washington Post Friday, June 17, 2005; 12:42 PM SEOUL, June 17 -- North Korean leader Kim Jong Il vowed Friday to come back to six-party nuclear disarmament talks next month "if it is certain that the United States is respecting the North as a partner," according to South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong Young. Chung, speaking to reporters in Seoul after an unexpected five-hour meeting with the reclusive North Korean leader in Pyongyang, also quoted Kim as expressing willingness to renounce nuclear weapons and to reopen his country to inspections. But Kim also said, according to Chung, that "the United States stance does not seem certain, and it has to be further negotiated with the United States." Chung met Kim Friday shortly before leaving Pyongyang at the head of a South Korean government delegation. The delegation went to the North Korean capital to celebrate a landmark summit between Kim and former South Korean President Kim Dae Jung in June 2000. "We were going to stand up against the United States for self-protective reasons since they look down upon us, but we have not given up nor rejected the six-party talks," Chung quoted Kim as saying. Kim added that "the denuclearization of the peninsula remains valid and is also a testament left by my father Kim Il Sung," Chung reported. Kim was referring to a 1992 agreement between the two Koreas that was signed by his late father, founder of the communist North Korean state. Chung said Kim told him that once the nuclear talks issue is resolved, North Korea would rejoin the Nonproliferation Treaty and accept international inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency. "There is no reason to keep nuclear weapons, not even one," Chung quoted Kim as saying. "I will open it all. They can come and see." IAEA inspectors were expelled from North Korea on Dec. 31, 2002, just days after Pyongyang announced that it would withdraw from the NPT, a global treaty against the spread of nuclear arms. During the private conversation, Chung said that he relayed a personal message from South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun. He said the message included an "important proposal." Analysts said the proposal was likely aimed at resolving the dispute with North Korea and was probably discussed in a meeting last week in Washington between Roh and President Bush. Chung said Kim pledged to carefully review the proposal together with Chung's explanation of the effectiveness of a regime guarantee in a multilateral framework. Pyongyang up to now has insisted on resolving such issues in bilateral talks with the United States. Chung said he asked Kim what he thought of Roh's comment that Bush had upgraded his treatment of the North Korean leader by referring him as "Mr. Kim." He said Kim replied, "Should I designate him as Mr. President, then? I have no reason to think bad of President Bush." Kim said he heard from Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi that President Bush is "an interesting man, a good man, who could have a good conversation," Chung said. He said Kim told him he has thought highly of the United States since the Clinton administration and stressed the importance of respecting one's negotiating partner. The North Korean leader also accepted various South Korean proposals to resume inter-Korean exchanges, Chung said. He said Kim was especially interested in a proposal to launch family reunions of separated North and South Koreans via video hookups. He said Kim told him it was "a very interesting and exciting idea that is possible in this information age." An estimated 120,000 South Koreans, mostly in their seventies and eighties, have so far applied to search for separated family members in the North. The families were torn apart by the Korean War, which raged from 1950 to 1953. Chung's summons to meet with the reclusive North Korean leader came as a surprise -- the usual style preferred by Kim -- while Chung was taking a morning jog just hours before leaving Pyongyang. "Kim knows how to play the game," said Hong Joon Pyo, a legislator from the opposition Grand National Party. "The surprises are a staging strategy to maximize the effect, a typical style of a dictator." Hong nevertheless welcomed the meeting as a positive move by Kim. North Korea's response comes a day after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called on the North to set a date and commit to discuss dismantling its nuclear program at the six-party talks, which involved North and South Korea, the United States, China, Russia and Japan. The talks have not convened for nearly a year because of a boycott by Pyongyang on grounds of what it says is Washington's hostile policy toward the communist state.