US outlines non-aggression plans
At the six-way diplomatic effort in Beijing, China, aimed at resolving the 10-month stand-off between North Korea and Washington over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programme, the US will say it has no plans to invade the reclusive communist state, according to the Nihon Keizai newspaper.
In October last year, the US announced that North Korea had admitted to a secret nuclear arms programme.
North Korea has since reactivated its Yongbyon nuclear plant, expelled UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors and effectively ended its support for the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
North Korea wants a non-aggression pact with Washington in exchange for a rethink on developing weapons of mass destruction.
North Korea, alongside Iran and Iran, sits on US President Bush’s “axis of evil.”
But US representatives will hold back on a written guarantee at the multilateral talks to begin Wednesday until Pyongyang unequivocally, “completely, verifiably and irreversibly'” abandons its nuclear weapons programme.
The plan was aired at an informal meeting last night with Japanese and South Korean officials at the start of the three-day diplomatic effort to discuss security issues on the Korean peninsula.
Joining Japan and the two Koreas are China, the US and Russia.
Talk from US officials of “containment and sanctions” against Pyongyang if it declines to stop its nuclear programme has drawn limited support from the Chinese delegation.
