BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Brunei – North Korea came under further pressure to give up its nuclear programs at a key Asia-Pacific security meeting Tuesday.
The top diplomats from the 27-member ASEAN Regional Forum, including its traditional ally China, expressed concerns about the North’s weapons ambition that threatens regional peace and security, Seoul officials said.
The region’s biggest security conference gathered together the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations and other partners including the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Japan and the European Union.
“Most ministers encouraged the DPRK (North Korea) to comply fully with its obligations to all relevant U.N. Security Council Resolutions and to its commitments under the Sept. 19 2005 Joint Statement of the Six-Party Talks,” the chairman’s statement said.
ARF MEET -- South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se (left, back row), North Korean Foreign Minister Pak Ui Chun (right, front row) and other participants in the ASEAN Regional Forum pose in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei, Tuesday. (Yonhap News)
“The ministers further encouraged exploring all possibility of engaging in a peaceful dialogue which would lead to the creation of an atmosphere of trust and confidence among the concerned parties.”
Negotiations over the statement stretched into late night, with the North Korea section being the last item on the agenda, Seoul’s Foreign Ministry said.
This year’s statement appears to contain a stronger message toward Pyongyang than previous ones, ministry officials said.
They noted the document directly mentioned the North using its name and articulated its responsibilities. It also excluded North Korea’s proposed wording that the U.S. “hostile policy” is “the root cause of the nuclear issue and “aggravating tension on the Korean Peninsula.”
Seoul’s Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se said North Korea’s nuclear program was a “key issue” of the forum and the communist state will have to heed the international community’s “grave message.”
“Most ministers stressed the significance and urgency of North Korea’s denuclearization, as well as the need for North Korea to comply with international obligations including UNSC resolutions,” he told reporters.
North Korea remained defiant, however, indicating it would discard the six-party agreement of 2005, despite calls from the U.S., China and South Korea to show its resolve to comply with the landmark accord.
“The Sept. 19 joint statement is already behind the times. Realistically speaking, the statement outlines the tasks for each of the six countries, which we executed whereas the U.S. and the South did not,” Choe Myong-nam, deputy chief of the North Korean Foreign Ministry’s international organizations bureau, told reporters.
He also called the U.N. resolutions “illegal and evil,” saying that the North would continue to resist.
Choe quoted North Korean Foreign Minister Pak Ui-chun as telling the session that the nuclear gridlock will not be resolved unless Washington scraps its “hostile” policy and nuclear umbrella for Seoul.
He once again urged the U.S. to accept its offer of senior-level talks over a peace mechanism to replace the 1953 armistice, lift sanctions and dismantle the U.N. Command in the South. The overture was made by North Korean Ambassador to the U.N. Sin Son-ho in New York late last month.
In recent weeks, Pyongyang has been stepping up its peace offensive by proposing dialogue, first with Seoul and then Washington.
Pak was expected to meet with his counterparts of China, India, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and Brunei during his four-day stay here until Wednesday.
Kim Kye-gwan, North Korea’s vice foreign minister in charge of nuclear negotiations, left for Moscow on Tuesday for talks with Russian First Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Titov and Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov, according to state media.
During a June trip to Beijing, Kim displayed the regime’s willingness to engage in “various dialogues including the six-party talks” to top officials including Yang Jiechi, a Chinese State Councilor in charge of foreign affairs.
A separate delegation led by Kim Song-nam, deputy director of international affairs at the (North) Korean Workers’ Party, was scheduled to arrive in the Chinese capital later in the day. In May he accompanied Choe Ryong-hae, director of the General Political Bureau of the (North) Korean People’s Army, when he went to Beijing as leader of Kim Jong-un’s special envoy and signaled Pyongyang’s intention for dialogue.
South Korea and the U.S. remain firm in their demand for the North to prove its sincerity with action.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday that Washington, Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo are “absolutely united and absolutely firm in our insistence that the future with respect to North Korea must include denuclearization.”
The possibilities of the North’s “normal relationships” with the South, China and the U.S. “lie at the end of engaging in a serious set of steps to denuclearize and serious negotiations that could accompany that,” he said at a news conference.
By Shin Hyon-hee, Korea Herald correspondent
(heeshin@heraldcorp.com)