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| Sunday, 24 October 2004 |
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Powell embarks on Asian tour US Secretary of State Colin Powell embarked Friday on a North Asian tour focused on resolving the North Korean nuclear deadlock, China and Taiwan and the presence of US troops in Japan and South Korea. Powell, who begins his meetings Sunday in Tokyo before heading on to Beijing and Seoul, will be looking to restart stalled multinational talks on eliminating Pyongyang's nuclear weapons at all three of his stops. But it appears unlikely that his visit, which comes less than two weeks before the November 2 US presidential election, will result in any breakthroughs. Analysts believe the Stalinist north wants to wait until after the election before coming back to the table, hoping for a change in US policy if President George W. Bush loses to his Democratic challenger John Kerry. A North Korean foreign ministry spokesman Friday demanded Washington drop its "hostile policy" towards Pyongyang and provide rewards for having frozen its nuclear activities. The spokesman also demanded South Korea's past nuclear experiments be discussed "before anything else" at the six-nation talks, the key multilateral forum aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear weapons drive. But the State Department said Pyongyang should return to the negotiating table without any preconditions. "We remain ready to resume talks at the earliest possible date without any preconditions," department spokesman Adam Ereli said. Powell, whose plane stopped over from Washington at an Alaskan air force base for refuelling enroute Tokyo, said the United States would not sweeten its aid-for-disarmament offer to North Korea and would not accept anything short of "fully verifiable" dismantling of its nuclear arms program. "President Bush has made it clear that we're not interested in invading North Korea, we want to help the North Korean people," Powell said on Fox News' "Tony Snow" show Friday. "But that help will only come when they have in a way that is fully verifiable, gotten rid of their nuclear weapons programs." At the last round of six-party talks in June, the United States offered the North three months to shut down and seal its nuclear weapons facilities in return for economic and diplomatic rewards and multilateral security guarantees. (AFP) |
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