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| Tuesday, 3 June 2003 |
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US, China agree to nuclear talks with N.Korea EVIAN, France, Monday (Reuters) The United States rejected a North Korean request for bilateral talks on its nuclear weapons programme, but agreed with China on the urgent need to get Pyongyang back to the negotiating table. "We cannot let this drift too long," a senior administration official said after President George W. Bush met China's President Hu Jintao in Evian, France, where they were attending a summit of Group of Eight leaders. North Korea used Hu to deliver its message that any multilateral talks could only come after bilateral talks with Washington. While Bush and Hu agreed it was "urgent to get North Korea back to the table," the American official said any talks would have to be multilateral, and he said China agreed. But once in that "multilateral format", U.S. and North Korean diplomats could talk directly to each other across the negotiating table, the official said. Washington said it would hold additional consultations with allies Japan and South Korea before deciding how to proceed. Meanwhile South Korea will not accept a nuclear North Korea, but Seoul has not verified the communist North's repeated assertions it already has atomic weapons, President Roh Moo-hyun said on Monday. |
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