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Tokyo (AFP) Dec 3, 2010 The United States, Japan and South Korea will discuss North Korea's uranium enrichment and other developments related to its nuclear ambitions in Washington next week, Japan's top diplomat said Friday. Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara said he plans to discuss with his US and South Korean counterparts "what kind of factors should be incorporated" into the premise of holding multilateral talks proposed by China. Maehara will meet with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and South Korea's Kim Sung-hwan some two weeks after Pyongyang killed four South Koreans in its first shelling of a civilian area in decades. Following North Korea's deadly artillery attack and its recent boasting about a new uranium reprocessing plant, China, under pressure to bring its ally to heel, proposed multilateral talks in Beijing in early December. But Washington, Tokyo and Seoul have snubbed Beijing's proposal for six-way crisis talks that would also include Moscow and Pyongyang -- instead scheduling their own three-way foreign ministers' talks in Washington next Monday. "The issue of uranium enrichment had not been discussed in the six-party talks, but that of course should be discussed at the forum," Maehara told reporters. "The uranium enrichment issue should never be let go." "This I think will be easily agreed between Japan, the United States and South Korea," he said. He also hopes to discuss in Washington his idea that North Korea should accept inspectors from the UN nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) after it showed off a a new uranium reprocessing plant to a US scientist, he said. "I hope we will respond to China with a counter-proposal" after the meeting in Washington, Maehara said. "We didn't simply reject the Chinese proposal (of holding a six-party meeting). We say just meeting, without prospects of any progress, is unacceptable," Maehara said. In November a US scientist revealed he had been shown a new uranium enrichment plant equipped with at least 1,000 centrifuges at the North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear complex outside the capital Pyongyang. North Korea abandoned six-party talks on ending its nuclear drive in April 2009 after launching a long-range rocket -- a move that earned UN condemnation and a new round of punitive sanctions.
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Satellite images show S.Korean shelling ineffectiveSeoul (AFP) Dec 2, 2010 Claims by Seoul's military that its counter-fire hit North Korea hard after the North shelled a South Korean border island were called into question by satellite images published Thursday. Military officials, trying to deflect charges they responded feebly to the deadly November 23 attack on Yeonpyeong island, have said their return fire was believed to have caused considerable damage. B ... read more |
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