Friday, Mar 07, 2003
'N. Korea may accept inspections'
By P. S. Suryanarayana
SINGAPORE March 6. Even as the strategic standoff between the U.S. and North Korea remained unresolved, China today disclosed that Pyongyang might be willing to seek a way out of the tangle. According to the Chinese Foreign Minister, Tang Jiaxuan, Beijing has discerned that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK or the North) might now accept inspections of its suspected nuclear weapons programme under the auspices of a new bilateral understanding with the United States.
Addressing a press conference on the sidelines of the ongoing First Session of the Tenth National People's Congress (or Parliament) in Beijing, Mr. Tang said that China took note of the DPRK's disavowal of any intention to make and deploy nuclear weapons. It was in this context that China had noticed, too, that the DPRK might be willing to allow inspections of its suspected nuclear facilities if such an arrangement could be worked out with the U.S. through bilateral channels. This semblance of a new `offer' from North Korea acquires unusual importance in the context of Pyongyang's recent expulsion of the inspectors belonging to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
North Korea had originally agreed to the now-defunct IAEA inspections in the wake of a deal that Pyongyang entered into with Washington in 1994 under the rubric of an Agreed Framework.
By outlining China's perception of the new thinking in North Korea on the nuclear issue, Mr. Tang reaffirmed Beijing's belief that the issue of weapons of mass destruction on the Korean peninsula could be best resolved only through a direct dialogue between Pyongyang and Washington. The basic issue of their mutual distrust, reckoned to be at the heart of their current dispute, could be addressed only through bilateral parleys, the Chinese Foreign Minister indicated.
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