 |
US Ready for Engagement With N. Korea
The United States told Japan on Friday it was ready for a gradual improvement in relations with North Korea if Pyongyang fulfills expectations on its long-range missiles and conventional forces.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell explained US intentions to Japanese Foreign Minister Yohei Kono at the first high-level meeting between the two allies since the Bush administration took office last Saturday.
"He (Powell) indicated that we would proceed step by step as North Korea meets the concerns that we have about missiles, about military forces and tensions on the peninsula," said a senior US official, who asked not to be named.
Japan, South Korea and the United States have been working together on trying to bring North Korea out of its isolation, dismantle its missile programs and end the Korean conflict, one of the last vestiges of the Cold War.
Powell's predecessor, Madeleine Albright, went to Pyongyang in October and former US President Bill Clinton seriously considered following in the last months of his presidency.
By the end of the Clinton era, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il had offered to stop developing missiles in exchange for promises of foreign help in launching satellites. The United States was interested but did not have time to clinch a deal.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the three allies would continue to coordinate their policies on North Korea but he gave no date for a three-way meeting and did not say if anyone would replace State Department counselor Wendy Sherman, who managed policy for the United States.
"The secretary has stressed ... the key importance to him of coordination with Japan and South Korea," Boucher said.
In testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week, Powell called Kim Jong-il a dictator who fields troops than he needs to face any conceivable threat.
North Korea responded angrily on Wednesday, saying that Powell's remarks were reckless and that it was prepared to respond to whatever stand Washington takes toward it.
COMPARED NOTES ON PUTIN
"If the US brandishes a sword at us, we will counter it with a sword and if it shows good faith, we will reciprocate it," said a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman.
A Japanese official said that in talks with Kono earlier on Friday, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice agreed to maintain US policy on coordination and said the United States supported South Korean President Kim Dae-jung's "sunshine" policy of engagement with the North Koreans.
Powell and Kono also talked about Russia under President Vladimir Putin, of whom both countries are wary.
"They talked about what Putin's up to... They shared concerns about some of the things going on in Moscow. They compared notes," said one US official, who cited allegations that Putin is seeking to stifle the press.
The Japanese minister brought up the Kuril Islands or Northern Territories -- four islands which Russia seized at the end of the Second World War and which Japan wants back. The United States is sympathetic to Japan in the dispute.
Kono spent 30 to 45 minutes in talks with Powell and his aides and then they had lunch for an hour -- a pattern set on Thursday when Powell saw Canadian Foreign Minister John Manley at his first meeting with a foreign counterpart.
"The discussion covered a wide range of topics, both bilateral topics and regional and global ones. It was based on a recognition of the extremely warm relationship we have with our Japanese allies," said Boucher.
They also talked about China, Myanmar, the World Trade Organization and the Japanese island of Okinawa, where the US military stations about 26,000 troops, he added.
Kono told Powell that Japan was keen to see the early resumption of a new round of trade talks but Powell did not express the same hope, the Japanese official said.
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori is expected to visit the United States next month to meet Bush, among the first foreign leaders from a top ally to meet the new president, Japanese media said on Thursday.
But top government spokesman Yasuo Fukuda said it remained unclear when Mori would go. Bush telephoned Mori on Wednesday to say he wanted to meet soon.
In This Section
|