By JOEL BRINKLEY
ANCHORAGE - Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice said Friday that she intended to rebuff a South Korean request
to enhance an offer that five nations made to North
Korea in exchange for dismantling its
nuclear weapons program.
The South Korean government has urged Washington
to add a rich package of incentives to a proposal given to North
Korea a year ago, during the last session of
six-nation nuclear disarmament negotiations. Chung Dong Young, South
Korea's unification minister, presented new
offers to Kim Jong Il, North
Korea's leader, during a meeting last month
in the North Korean capital.
After a visit to Washington
last week, Mr. Chung seemed to believe the administration had agreed to his
government's plan to combine the two proposals. "Both sides agreed that
the next six-party talks, when they reopen, will gain momentum if they combine
the proposals from the previous talks and South Korea's important
proposal," he told Korean reporters.
But speaking Friday on her plane en route to China,
her first stop on an Asian tour, Ms. Rice said: "We are not talking about
enhancement of the current proposal. I will listen to what people think. But I
think it is important to get a response to the proposal already made."
During her trip, Ms. Rice intends to visit three of the six
nations involved in the disarmament talks, China,
South Korea and
Japan. (The
other three are the United States,
North Korea and
Russia.) From China
and South Korea,
she is almost certain to hear requests that Washington
improve the offer on the table, which includes security guarantees, energy
assistance and other aid. Russia
has expressed the same view.
North Korea
never responded to the current offer. Chinese officials say the North Koreans
found it disappointingly long on requests and short on rewards. For months,
however, the Bush administration has been saying Washington
is unwilling to offer anything more until North
Korea responds to the first offer.
"Then we will be in a negotiation," Ms. Rice said.
During her previous trip to the region in March, Ms. Rice
urged the Chinese to use their leverage over North
Korea to convince them to return to the
talks. Since then, the administration has given up its expectation that China
will do more. This time, she said, "I am not going with a list of things I
want the Chinese to do." Instead, she said, she will be "prepared to
hear what the Chinese are prepared to do."
After meeting with Mr. Kim last month, Mr. Chung said Mr.
Kim told him that North Korea
was prepared to come back to the talks. Since then, Washington
has been waiting for North Korea
to set a date.
Hopes were raised once again on Friday when Japan's
prime minister, Junichiro
Koizumi, said conversations he had had this week at the meeting of industrial
nations in Scotland
led him to believe the six-nation talks would soon resume. "From comments
made by leaders at the meeting, I received the impression that North Korea will
soon return to the six-way talks," he said at a news conference, Reuters
reported.
7/10/05
Source: The New York
Times
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