South Korea Proposes Talks with North Korea

Rice and South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon maintained a united front on Monday, agreeing that North Korea should stop big-footing and return to six-nation talks aimed at getting the North to abandon its nuclear weapons program. “North Korea should return to the dialogue table without any preconditions, as soon as possible. This is the consensus opinion of the international community,”.

The meeting came after a weekend call between Rice and the Chinese foreign minister. The six-party talks also include Japan and Russia. Pyongyang announced last week with some braggadocio that it has nuclear weapons, and it demanded that the Bush administration hold one-on-one talks with North Korean officials.

A key congressional critic of North Korea says he believes the regime might be persuaded to give up its nuclear weapons development if the United States changes, the “tone” of its approach toward the North. The comments by Tom Lantos, top Democrat on the House International Relations Committee, come amid heightened concern on Capitol Hill about North Korea’s recent declaration that it has nuclear weapons.

The visited North Korea at the invitation of the government in Pyongyang, one of only two members of the House of Representatives do so over the past year. In a speech at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C., Mr. Lantos said he told his North Korean hosts an opportunity for a breakthrough in relations with the United States still exists.

“I told senior officials in North Korea that 2004 was the year for diplomatic breakthroughs with Libya, and it is my strong hope that 2005 could be the year for progress in our relationship with North Korea.” Three of the other parties — China, South Korea and Japan — have advocated a more conciliatory approach to solving the North Korean nuclear issues, and have urged the United States to be more flexible.

Boucher’s comments came after a meeting Monday between U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon. Ban urged North Korea to return to the bargaining table “as a responsible member of the international community,” and said that he and Rice “agreed to intensify our efforts among the parties concerned.”

“We are very dedicated to trying to find a diplomatic solution. We are very dedicated to the six-party process,” said US Ambassador to South Korea Christopher Hill. Hill was named yesterday as the leader of the US delegation to the six-party talks, which also include North and South Korea, China, Japan and Russia. Speculation has been mounting in Washington and Seoul that Hill will soon leave his post in Korea and return to Washington to start work as assistant secretary of state for East Asian affairs.

“The North Korean comments are certainly not helpful to the process. We hope that they will see the wisdom of returning to the talks,” Hill told a breakfast meeting at a major South Korean university. “We have put together a very good proposal and we look forward to hearing what their response is,” he said. “To some extent, we are going to have to get some goodwill from North Korea.”

In Washington yesterday, South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon told reporters after talks with Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of State, that his country wanted to focus on diplomacy when asked if Seoul supported the idea of greater pressure. “At this time we need to intensify our diplomatic efforts,” Ban said. “We will continue our efforts through peaceful and diplomatic.”