U.S. Holds Open Possibility of Military Talks with Pyongyang

Regarding Pyongyang’s proposal for holding military talks with Washington in which UN delegates would attend, the Bush administration said that the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula should come first, while holding open the possibility of such talks.

Tom Casey, U.S. State Department deputy spokesman, said in the regular briefing on June 13 (local time), “If North Korea has a specific idea about the issue, there will be an opportunity to discuss it specifically either within the framework of the six-party talks or as a separate meeting.”

He added, “The September joint statement (in 2005) made it clear that ‘stakeholders will have negotiations on a permanent peace regime on the Korean peninsula in an appropriate separate forum,” stressing, “But we have a long way to go to reach that point.”

State Department Assistant Secretary Christopher Hill visited Japan to coordinate positions prior to the six-party talks scheduled to be held in Beijing and said, “We will not agree on a peace regime before the denuclearization of the peninsula.”

He said, “As our ultimate goal is complete denuclearization, we should deal with the issue in parallel with the six-party talks.”

spear@donga.com