DPRK Permanent Representative Sends Letter to President of UNSC
Pyongyang — The permanent representative of the DPRK to the United Nations sent a letter to the president of the UN Security Council Thursday.
Noting that he would like to bring the attention of the president to the DPRK’s already stated principled stand and countermeasures in connection with a letter addressed to the DPRK by the so-called “Sanctions Committee” of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) requesting a clarification, he continued:
The DPRK totally rejects the UNSC “Resolution 1874″ which was unfairly orchestrated in June 13 in wanton violation of the DPRK’s sovereignty and dignity and that the DPRK will never be bound by this resolution.
We do not feel, therefore, any need to respond to the request made by the UNSC “committee”.
Had the UNSC, from the very beginning, not made an issue of the DPRK’s peaceful satellite launch in the same way as it kept silent over the satellite launch conducted by south Korea on August 25, 2009, it would not have compelled the DPRK to take strong counteraction such as its 2nd nuclear test.
It is all fair and square to find that the DPRK took its steps of action to cope with the high-handed act and threat which are aimed at depriving the DPRK of its rights to peaceful economic construction.
It would be a miscalculation if the UNSC, rather than apologizing for violating the legitimate right of a member state of the UN, thought that we would recognize the “sanctions resolution” which was framed up in the same way as the thief turning on the victim with a club over the DPRK’s self-defensive steps.
We have never objected to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and of the world itself. What we objected to is the structure of the six way talks which had been used to violate outrageously the DPRK’s sovereignty and its right to peaceful development.
The denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula is closely related with the U.S. nuclear policy toward the DPRK.
The DPRK has already made clear its countermeasures to cope with sanctions as well.
Reprocessing of spent fuel rods is at its final phase and extracted plutonium is being weaponized.
Experimental uranium enrichment has successfully been conducted to enter into completion phase.
We are prepared for both dialogue and sanctions.
If some permanent members of the UNSC wish to put sanctions first before dialogue, we would respond with bolstering our nuclear deterrence first before we meet them in a dialogue.
If the UNSC only continues this standoff without making a proper judgment of which path is more favorable for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and of the world, the DPRK will be left with no choice but to take yet stronger self-defensive countermeasures as it had already warned.
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US Ready for Direct North Korea Talks to Break Atomic Impasse
By Indira A.R. Lakshmanan
September 11 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. is ready to engage directly with North Korea in an effort to bring the nuclear- armed regime back to multinational talks on disarmament, the top State Department spokesman said in an interview yesterday.
“There’s a consensus that we’re prepared to engage North Korea bilaterally as a means to accomplish what our long-term objectives are: to encourage North Korea to come back to the six-party process” and take “affirmative steps toward denuclearization,” Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs Philip J. Crowley said by telephone.
Until now, the Obama administration has insisted it would only engage in talks with the impoverished communist nation within the framework of negotiations involving South Korea, Japan, China and Russia. The so-called six-party effort has tried to persuade North Korea to dismantle its nuclear weapons program in exchange for economic aid and improved ties.
Following months of threatening rhetoric and provocative missile and nuclear tests by North Korea, the atmosphere has cooled since an Aug. 4 visit to Pyongyang by former President Bill Clinton to secure the release of two detained U.S. journalists. The shift in U.S. policy to accept temporary talks may further ease tensions and get nuclear diplomacy on track.
The new strategy emerged after two senior U.S. envoys — special representative for North Korean policy Stephen Bosworth and six-party talks envoy Sung Kim — completed consultations in Asia earlier this week with their Chinese, Japanese, Russian and South Korean counterparts.
“We believe we have support” from the other partner nations “to have bilateral discussions if appropriate as a means of bringing North Korea back to the six-party process,” Crowley said.
Partners’ Approval
Crowley stressed the U.S. wouldn’t have any direct talks without the approval and support of its four partners, and that the discussions would be a short-term solution to get North Korea back to the broader discussion on its nuclear weapons.
Talks to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear program stalled last year, and Kim Jong Il’s regime formally quit the negotiations to protest the United Nations’ condemnation of its April 5 firing of a Taepodong-2 rocket over the Sea of Japan.
Since then, North Korea has fired more than a dozen missiles and detonated a second nuclear device in defiance of the international community, prompting the UN Security Council to impose sanctions in June.
The latest punishments are intended to crimp the regime’s ability to move money around the world to finance its nuclear and missile efforts. The sanctions also aim to prevent North Korea from shipping illicit nuclear material by sea.
Plutonium Effort
North Korea, which U.S. scientists and intelligence analysts estimate has several nuclear warheads, said in a letter to the Security Council last week that it is in the final stages of “weaponizing” plutonium and has almost succeeded in highly enriching uranium, the second means for creating a nuclear device.
North Korea’s latest threat follows a series of conciliatory gestures in the past month, when it released the two U.S. journalists and several South Korean citizens, and sent a delegation to South Korea.
John Podesta, former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, said in a separate interview yesterday that Clinton’s delegation urged the North Korean leader last month to receive Bosworth in Pyongyang. Clinton has described his trip as a “private, humanitarian” mission to secure the release of two U.S. journalists who work for a television channel started by his former vice president, Al Gore.
“We suggested they see Bosworth in North Korea,” Podesta said. “My expectation is that’ll happen in the near future, but I don’t know.”
osworth’s Travels
North Korea refused to see Bosworth when he traveled through the region to visit other members of the six-party talks in March.
Podesta said the suggestion was made in their capacity as private citizens, and wasn’t a message from President Barack Obama or Clinton’s wife, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. North Korea issued an invitation shortly thereafter.
Asked if the U.S. was prepared to accept North Korea’s invitation for Bosworth to come to Pyongyang, Crowley said the two envoys had just returned from their consultations and no decision had been made.
“We’ll take stock of where we are and then make decisions on where we go from here,” he said.
Podesta said the North Korean leader, whose reputed ill health and withdrawal from the public eye during the past year has been the subject of widespread speculation, seemed energetic, though his face and arm did appear to show signs of a stroke that U.S. intelligence believes he suffered last year.
“I’m not a doctor. I don’t want to pronounce a medical diagnosis,” Podesta said. “He certainly had the stamina to engage with us for three hours.”
Podesta said Kim didn’t make any requests for humanitarian assistance in exchange for releasing Euna Lee and Laura Ling, who were detained in March for crossing the North Korean border illegally while reporting for San Francisco-based Current TV.
To contact the reporter on this story: Indira Lakshmanan in Washington at ilakshmanan@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: September 10, 2009 22:05 EDT
Source: Bloomberg
No proof of DPRK’s so-claimed completion of uranium enrichment: Russian FM
Moscow, September 10 (Xinhua) — Russia has no proof that the uranium enrichment experiment that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is conducting has entered its final phase, said spokesman for the foreign ministry here on Thursday.
“The Russian Foreign Ministry has no information about the real state of affairs and the truthfulness of Pyongyang’s declarations,” the Inter fax news agency quoted Andrei Nesterenko as saying.
In a letter sent to the U.N. on Sept. 3, the DPRK said the “experimental uranium enrichment has successfully been conducted to enter into completion phase.”
“We have taken notice of the DPRK’ s statement. The DPRK informed us about such plans before,” said Nesterenko.
The spokesman reiterated that “the Russian attitude to the DPRK’ s experiments is invariable: They do not meet the declared intention of Pyongyang to denuclearize Korea and are fraught with an escalation of tensions.”
“We understand the DPRK’ s security concerns but think that the solution must be political and diplomatic, rather than trigger a regional arms race, particularly a nuclear one,” he said.
Russia along with other nations concerned are taking active diplomatic efforts to resume the six-party talks on the settlement of the Korean nuclear issue.
“These negotiations remain the optimum format for settling the nuclear issue of the Korean Peninsula,” he said.
The six-party talks have been stalled since the last round in Beijing last December.
Initiated in 2003, the talks involve China, the DPRK, the United States, South Korea, Russia and Japan.
Source: Xinhua