| U.S. Rejects Bilateral Talks With North Korea
Friday, February 11, 2005
SEOUL, South Korea — The Bush administration has once again rejected North Korea's (search) demand for bilateral talks on its nuclear weapons program.
"It's not an issue between North Korea and the United States. It's a regional issue," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said on Friday. "And it's an issue that impacts all of its neighbors."
Pyongyang blames the conflict over its nuclear program (search) on Washington. Korean officials first reportedly admitted the nation had resumed its program two years ago. North Korean officials later denied it was building nuclear weapons, accusing the Americans of misinterpreting their statements.
On Thursday, the communist holdout boldly confirmed its nuclear weapons program. The United States has long assumed the country already had a small number of weapons.
The Bush administration insists that the best format for talks with North Korea includes its neighbors and allies: South Korea, Japan, China and Russia.
In an interview with a South Korean newspaper Friday, North Korea's U.N. envoy demanded bilateral talks with the United States.
"We will return to the six-nation talks when we see a reason to do so and the conditions are ripe," Han Sung Ryol told Seoul's Hankyoreh newspaper in an interview published Friday. "If the United States moves to have direct dialogue with us, we can take that as a signal that the United States is changing its hostile policy toward us."
Source: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,147083,00.html | |
