N Korea sought cash from US
2004-09-26 19:41
New York - North Korea sought "several billion dollars" in cash from the US during bilateral missile talks during former President Bill Clinton's administration in exchange for halting its missile exports, the Kyodo news agency reported on Sunday, citing US documents.
The demand appears to reconfirm Pyongyang's intent to gain economic tradeoffs from the US and other countries including Japan by using the development, testing and exportation of ballistic missiles as a negotiating card, Kyodo said.
While the missile talks were under way, North Korea was reported to have sought from the US $1bn annually over a three-year period in return for the North halting missile exports. North Korean negotiators had also reportedly admitted to having demanded $1bn, the news agency said.
The documents, formerly classified and made available under the Freedom of Information Act, include a "talking points" paper produced by the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs of the US State Department on October 15, 1998, Kyodo cited.
The document, according to Kyodo, is believed to be an agenda for consultations with a third country on ways to deal with North Korea.
Touching on the third round of missile talks between the US and North Korea in October 1998 in New York, the document says the North rejected restrictions on its development and deployment of missiles but proposed that it would not make any missile export contract in exchange for more than $1bn in cash and a relaxation of US sanctions against Pyongyang, the news agency reported.
The third round, following previous rounds in April 1996 and June 1997, ended without any real breakthrough.
In another document, which had been written as a briefing paper for the Japanese government, Iran, Egypt, Syria and Pakistan were cited as recipients of missile equipment or technology from North Korea, Kyodo reported.
The document also stated that Libya had shown interest in acquiring medium-range missiles from North Korea, according to Kyodo.