Kim reiterates his country’s persistent stance:
North Korea makes denuclearisation pledge
S KOREA: North Korean leader Kim Jong-il pledged to remove nuclear
weapons from the peninsula in a meeting with a senior envoy from China,
Xinhua news agency reported on Tuesday from Pyongyang.
Nuclear
weapons
* North world end year-long
boycott of nuclear disarmament talks
* It could win aid to prop
up its economy |
The pledge could bode well for prospects the North would end its
year-long boycott of ternational nuclear disarmament talks, in which it
could win aid to prop up its economy by reducing the military threat it
poses to the region.
China’s Xinhua news agency reported that Kim reiterated his
“country’s persistent stance to realise the denuclearisation of the
Korean peninsula.”
Chinese Communist Party international affairs Chief Wang Jiarui met
Kim on Monday and conveyed a verbal message from Chinese President Hu
Jintao, North Korea’s official KCNA news agency reported without
elaborating.
China, the North’s biggest benefactor, is seen as having the most
influence on the reclusive state. The North has said it could end its
nuclear arms programme once the United States drops what it sees as a
hostile policy toward it. In another high-profile visit to the country,
UN under-secretary-general for political affairs Lynn Pascoe was
expected to arrive in Pyongyang on Tuesday for a trip aimed at prodding
the North back to the six-way nuclear talks.
Analysts said pressure may be mounting on the North to return to the
disarmament-for-aid discussions due to U.N. sanctions imposed after its
nuclear test last year that dealt a severe blow to its economy and a
botched currency reform measure that sparked inflation and rare civil
unrest.
Seoul, Reuters
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