N Korea talks end without deal
2006-12-22 12:43
Beijing - Diplomatic efforts to persuade
North Korea to scrap its nuclear weapons ended with no deal on
Friday after a week of six-party talks, Interfax news agency
reported, quoting a source close to the Russian delegation.
The negotiations broke up "without concrete result", the report said.
Delegates would now take a break and no date was set for a
resumption, Yonhap news agency reported, citing a source
involved in the talks.
Envoys had wanted to focus on a September 2005 agreement
that offered the North aid and security guarantees in return
for disarmament, but Pyongyang remained preoccupied with
getting US financial curbs against it lifted.
"Our goal is denuclearisation. Period," chief US envoy
Christopher Hill told reporters on the fifth day of this round
of talks. "They need to show some seriousness of purpose on
denuclearisation."
The talks, which group the two Koreas, the United States,
China, Japan and Russia, took place in the shadow of the
North's first nuclear test on October 9.
They were the first negotiations in more than a year. North
Korea pulled out in anger over a freeze on its accounts at
Macau's Banco Delta Asia, which Washington said was complicit
in Pyongyang's alleged money-laundering and dollar
counterfeiting.
'It's one thing after the other'
North Korea said the financial curbs - announced shortly
after the breakthrough September 2005 deal - showed Washington
had negotiated in bad faith.
But Hill questioned just how seriously North Korea wanted
to talk about disarmament, saying the financial dispute was a
pretext to avoid the real issue at hand.
"One day it's financial issues, another day it's something
they want but know they can't have, another day it was
something that was said that hurt their feelings. It's one
thing after the other," he said.
Hill said early on Friday he was unsure about if or when
talks could resume.
"The purpose is denuclearisation, so we'll have to evaluate
this round in terms of whether we've moved towards that goal."
"It all comes down to the question of are they serious, are
they acting responsibly? And I think that question is very much
unanswered," he said.
Failure to make progress would call into question the
multilateral negotiations, Japan's chief envoy said.
"I think various opinions will emerge on the credibility of
the six-party talks," Kenichiro Sasae told reporters.
- Reuters