North Korea tops agenda during Bush’s Asian tour
President Bush arrived in Tokyo today on the first leg of his seven-day tour of Asia and Australia. The issue of North Korea’s nuclear capability is expected to be at the top of the agenda during his discussions with Prime Minister Koizumi.
But he is also expected to address the issue of the war on terrorism, the reconstruction of Iraq and the Japanese currency.
President Bush and the First Lady will also be visiting the Philippines, Thailand – where he will also hold bilateral meetings President Hu of China among other world leaders – Singapore, Bali, Indonesia, and Australia.
Earlier in the week US national security adviser Condoleezza Rice told reporters that whether or not North Korea actually had nuclear weapons or not its weapons programme was ‘not acceptable’.
The President is expected to call for six-party talks to begin again between North and South Korea, Japan, China, Russia and the US, following the stalemate that resulted from discussions back in August.
US officials have suggested that a summit could be arranged for next month, but the prospect of such an early meeting seemed unlikely today as talks between North and South Korea ended inconclusively.
The North Korean government is reported to have dismissed requests from their neighbours for further multilateral negotiations, and went as far as to suggest that it would “physically display” its nuclear capacity.
North Korea is believed to have restarted its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, and may have reprocessed as many as 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods, which could be used to make nuclear devices. The international community is not clear on the details of the country’s weapons programme after UN inspectors were kicked out last year.
