South Korean Foreign Minister Yoon Young-Kwan warned North Korea on Sunday not to follow through on threats to build up its nuclear programme, saying such a move would only increase the North’s isolation.
”If North Korea aggravates the situation further by going ahead with its development program… it will see itself isolated further or face a more difficult situation,” Yoon said.
Yoon’s comments came after North Korea angrily dismissed six-nation talks in Beijing as ”useless”, saying it was more convinced than ever of the need to strengthen its nuclear arsenal.
Despite the inconclusive nature of the three days of talks that ended on Friday, the participants — North and South Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia — agreed more discussions were needed, but failed to set a date.
The meeting was ”not only useless but harmful in every aspect”, a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesperson said in a statement on Saturday.
”Betraying our expectation, the talks turned out to be no more than armchair arguments and degenerated into a stage show to force us to disarm.
”We are now more convinced then before that we have no other alternatives but to continue strengthening our nuclear deterrence as a self-defensive measure to protect our sovereignty.”
It was not clear whether the spokesperson’s comment signaled a formal policy deviation from the agreement on Friday to talk again.
Yoon played down the significance of the North’s rhetoric, saying the meeting in Beijing had laid a path towards a peaceful resolution of the crisis.
”North Korea and the US showed more flexibility, leading us to believe they can hold concrete discusssion in the next round of talks,” he said.
He urged North Korea to stop ”marring the atmosphere of dialogue”.
Pyongyang has often used bluster when discussing its nuclear programme. US officials said North Korea upped the ante at the Beijing talks with its threats to conduct a nuclear test and declare itself a nuclear power.
North Korea repeated during the talks its long-standing demand for a non-aggression pact with the US, which it accuses of wanting to invade.
It also sought normalisation of diplomatic relations between the two countries before it would abandon its nuclear ambitions.
Washington has been adamant that North Korea’s nuclear programmes must be dismantled before it will consider economic assistance and diplomatic normalisation for the bankrupt country and has said it will not cave to what it called North Korea’s ”nuclear blackmail”.
The nuclear crisis erupted in October when the US accused North Korea of reneging on a 1994 bilateral nuclear accord by setting up a clandestine programme based on enriched uranium.
Washington immediately cut vital fuel shipments to the Stalinist state, while North Korea responded by expelling United Nations inspectors, restarting a mothballed reactor and withdrawing from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. — Sapa-AFP