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White House rejects resuming nuke talks with N. Korea

Posted December. 23, 2010 10:34,   

한국어

The White House said Wednesday that North Korea should live up to its denuclearization obligations and stop belligerent action before resuming the six-party nuclear talks.

Despite the North’s appeasement gestures, Washington apparently indicated that it cannot trust Pyongyang’s rhetoric that is not followed by action.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told a regular news briefing that the six-party talks will not be restarted until the North displays its willingness to change its behavior.

"We`re not going to get a table and a room and have six-party talks just for the feel-good notion of having six-party talks," he said. "When and if the North Koreans are ever serious about living up to their obligations, then we can think about restarting six-party talks.”

"But the belligerent actions that the North Koreans have demonstrated over the past many weeks I don`t think provide anybody the confidence that they`re even remotely ready to resume in a responsible way those talks."

"Right now, the action must come not from their words but from their deeds," the spokesman said, adding the North knows what it should do to meet its obligations and that the world is waiting for it to do so.

Pyongyang recently invited New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson to visit the North and inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency to hold inspections, as well as send 12,000 spent fuel rods abroad. Washington, however, is apparently unmoved.

Gibbs also said President Barack Obama has no plan to hold talks with Richardson because the governor`s trip to Pyongyang was personal.

On Obama’s response to South Korea’s recent firing drill on Yeonpyeong Island, Gibbs said Seoul is a key U.S. ally and both sides will continue to cooperate in coping with Pyongyang’s belligerence.

In a letter Obama sent to several Republican Party lawmakers to ask for cooperation with the passage of the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia, he is said to have expressed fears over Russia and North Korea’s bellicose actions over the past several days.



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