U.S. Reassures North Korea on Nuclear Arms Crisis by Irwin Arieff
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Washington reassured a nervous North Korea (news - web sites) on Wednesday that it sought a peaceful solution to the crisis over Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions and offered a possible way forward, saying that diplomatic efforts to resolve it could proceed on several tracks.
President Bush (news - web sites) "has repeatedly said that we seek a peaceful and diplomatic end to the North Korean nuclear arms program," U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte said after closed-door Security Council talks on the matter.
Bush has been pushing for an international approach to the crisis involving North Korea's neighbors and "achieving a multilateral solution may take time, but efforts can proceed on several tracks," Negroponte told reporters.
North Korea has so far snubbed Washington's calls for a multilateral approach, saying a solution would be possible only through face-to-face talks with the United States leading to a new nonaggression pact between the two countries.
The United States had earlier been pressing the 15-nation council to issue a strong statement condemning Pyongyang for pulling out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and urging it to resume compliance with international measures intended to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.
It was unable to win backing for such a statement from permanent council members China and Russia.
But after the meeting -- the council's first on the issue since Pyongyang withdrew from the nonproliferation pact and kicked out U.N. inspectors -- Negroponte said Washington was satisfied with the meeting's end result.
'ACCEPTABLE OUTCOME'
"We haven't taken any option off the table. But at this stage of diplomatic contacts that have been ongoing in the region, we viewed this is an acceptable outcome of this particular consultation," he said.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher similarly played down the significance of North Korea's imminent withdrawal from the Non-Proliferation Treaty, saying Pyongyang's nuclear programs were the issue.
"It is important to maintain focus on the real strategic issue -- complete, verifiable and irreversible elimination of North Korea's nuclear weapons program," he told a briefing.
"There is considerable political unanimity in the international community to support the denuclearization of the (Korean) peninsula and that's where we think the focus should stay," Boucher added.
Some diplomats had warned Washington that a strong council statement could escalate rather than defuse the crisis.
"We would like to see the members of the council strongly reiterating their position in favor of a political solution of this issue. Condemnations would not help," Russian U.N. Ambassador Sergei Lavrov said ahead of the meeting, calling instead for "a direct dialogue between the United States and North Korea."
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) said he thought the next step should be "to get the parties talking and to find a format that will be acceptable to both parties and bring them to the table to talk."
The North Korean nuclear issue was referred to the Security Council by the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) three months ago after Pyongyang informed the U.N. nuclear watchdog it would no longer observe its non-proliferation obligations.
Pyongyang's withdrawal from the NPT becomes official on Thursday when the formal 90-day notice period ends, according to the IAEA.
The impoverished communist state said it was reviving its nuclear program to dramatize the threat to it posed by the United States.
Pyongyang has accused Washington of pressing for the Security Council to take up the nuclear issue as "a prelude to war" following its war on Iraq (news - web sites) over that country's alleged weapons of mass destruction. The United States has 37,000 troops in South Korea (news - web sites) and has lumped North Korea with Iraq and Iran as part of an "axis of evil."
The United States has said repeatedly that it has no intention of attacking Pyongyang.