SEOUL – Fresh nuclear disarmament talks with North Korea are still possible but only if the communist state ends “dangerous provocations” and shows good faith, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday. Gates, ending an Asian tour with a brief stopover in Seoul, said the process must start with talks between the two Koreas. Seoul has rejected as insincere Pyongyang’s recent dialogue offers, which come less than two months after a deadly bombardment of a South Korean island.
The United States and close ally South Korea also accuse Pyongyang of torpedoing a South Korean warship last March with the loss of 46 lives, a charge it denies. Gates, speaking before talks with Defence Minister Kim Kwan-Jin, said they would discuss close coordination to deter future provocations. Washington bases 28,500 troops in the South. Kim said the South expects more provocations this year and must respond “from a position of strength”.
Gates castigated the North for its “continued belligerence and repeated provocations” but did not rule out a revival of long-stalled six-nation nuclear disarmament negotiations. “With regard to next steps on North Korea, diplomatic engagement is possible, starting with direct engagement between the DPRK (North Korea) and the South,” he said in a statement before the meeting. “When or if North Korea’s action shows a cause to believe that negotiations can be productive and conducted in good faith, then we could see a return to the six-party talks.” However, Gates said Pyongyang’s leaders “must stop these dangerous provocations and take concrete steps to show that they will begin meeting their international obligations”.
The North quit the aid-for-nuclear disarmament talks in April 2009, a month before staging its second nuclear test. Pyongyang has expressed willingness to return to the forum grouping the two Koreas, the United States, Russia, China and Japan. But first it wants a lifting of UN sanctions and a US commitment to discuss a formal peace treaty. And it fuelled regional security fears in November by disclosing a uranium enrichment plant — potentially a second route to a nuclear bomb. The United States, Japan and South Korea say the North must improve relations with the South and show a real commitment to scrapping its nuclear arsenal before the six-party process can resume.
