hankyoreh

While visiting Pyongyang last month, Wang Jiarui, the head of the Chinese Communist Party’s International Liaison Department, told North Korean leader Kim Jong-il to continue to participate in the six-party talks while U.S. President George W. Bush is still in office because a change of administration in the United States will make progress difficult, the Japanese daily Yomiuri Shimbun reported February 17.

Quoting diplomatic sources, Kim is reported to have expressed strong displeasure with the way the United States is questioning whether North Korea has been involved in nuclear proliferation involving Syria, saying that “trust cannot be built in this way.” Wang is said to have responded by telling the North Korean leader that the Democratic Party is the most likely to win the American presidential election in the fall, and that the resulting change in the Americans responsible for the six-party process could make moving forward difficult. The Yomiuri Shimbun said that Kim is reported to have agreed.

In related news, on February 16 Stanford University Professor Siegfried Hecker said North Korea told him it has no intention of going through with a “complete and accurate declaration” of its nuclear programs until the countries participating in the six-party process have carried out their obligations.

Hecker recently returned from a visit to Pyongyang that began February 12, telling reporters in Beijing that North Korean officials told him its declaration of nuclear programs would move forward only if there is first heavy fuel oil aid and a removal of sanctions, such as the application of the Trading With The Enemy Act and the inclusion of North Korea on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terror.

Meanwhile on February 16, top U.S. six-party negotiator Christopher Hill said that a declaration that is not compete and accurate would not be accepted by the U.S. In an interview with the Council on Foreign Relations, Hill said of the declaration, “if it comes in at fifty kilos and the verification process turns out it should be sixty, then we have a gap of ten. That’s a problem. If it comes in at thirty and the verification shows that thirty is correct, then we don’t have a problem.”



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