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N.Korea says not ready for nuclear talks
(Reuters)
Updated: 2005-08-29 07:45
Kantathi met his North Korean counterpart, Paek Nam-sun, for about 90 minutes
in the North Korean capital on Saturday, followed by dinner.
The status of the six-party talks had been up in the air, with silence from
all sides on a firm date to resume, after the participants agreed to a
three-week recess in the last round which ended this month.
Japan said on Sunday no decision had been made, as far as it knew.
"As far as Japan is concerned, the date of the talks is still under
discussion," Foreign Ministry spokesman Akira Chiba said in Tokyo.
PATIENCE WEARING THIN
Previous rounds of six-party talks have ended with simply an agreement to
meet again.
"If North Korea actually refused to return to the six-party forum this week,
that would mean they would break the promise they had made to all other parties
concerned," a Japanese government source told Reuters.
"We have given them a chance, maybe a last chance so to speak, to resolve the
crisis in the region the way we all have been hoping for. Our patience would
wear thinner and thinner. I believe particularly those in the U.S. government
would feel so disappointed and frustrated and their patience would wear very
thin."
North Korea said on Saturday that Washington's decision to appoint a special
envoy to monitor human rights in the country had cast a shadow over the
six-party talks.
Washington said then that Pyongyang had admitted to a secret program to
enrich uranium in violation of a 1994 agreement, a claim North Korea later
denied.
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