UPDATE 1-INTERVIEW-Japan: patience running out for NKorea talks
Mon Jul 4, 2005
By Linda Sieg
TOKYO, July 4 (Reuters) - Patience is running out for North Korea to return to stalled talks on its nuclear arms programme, Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura said on Monday, adding that Tokyo was neither optimistic nor pessimistic about the likelihood the negotiations would resume soon.
"In some quarters there is a very optimistic view and they probably have their basis for that, but the Japanese government is neither extremely optimistic nor extremely pessimistic," Machimura told Reuters in an interview.
"Each country is in the midst of making the greatest diplomatic efforts ... while hoping for a resumption of the talks at the earliest stage," he said.
Asked, however, how long Japan and other countries were prepared to wait, he said: "Soon, we will reach the limits of our patience.
"The passage of time helps North Korea's nuclear development, so we need to deal with this with a sense of urgency, with the awareness that time is running out for the option of waiting."
Informal discussions on the North Korean nuclear crisis ended in New York on Friday with participants optimistic that Pyongyang would return to six-country negotiations, but no date was fixed.
Earlier on Monday a South Korean official who visited Washington last week to discuss the North Korean nuclear crisis said the stalled talks could resume as early as this month.
Asked about growing expectations of talks this month, however, Machimura said: "Various people are saying various things ... and I don't think they are groundless (comments) but as far as I am aware, I don't think North Korea has said anything clear or definitive."
Six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear programme have not been held since late June 2004.
Pyongyang said in February that it possessed nuclear weapons and was boycotting the talks that include North and South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the United States.
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Machimura said North Korea would be high on the agenda in talks with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who is expected to travel to Asia later this month.
Machimura declined, however, to say whether there was any deadline for North Korea to return to the six-party talks.
"The one-year period which some had thought was a deadline has already passed, and that is very significant," he said.
The United States is adamant it will not negotiate bilaterally with Pyongyang. It says the six-party talks are the forum for achieving an end to North Korea's nuclear programme, which it sees as a major security threat.
Reviving the talks has taken on special urgency because of signs North Korea is expanding its nuclear capabilities.
U.S. officials have said Pyongyang might have eight or more nuclear weapons, up from one or two at the start of U.S. President George W. Bush's first term in office.
South Korea's Unification Minister Chung Dong-young was quoted by Yonhap news agency on Saturday as saying South Korea and the United States had agreed to combine proposals to try to convince North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons programme.
Machimura declined to comment on the content of any such proposals. But he added that such measures should not be for the purpose of luring Pyongyang back to the table but for achieving the goal of a nuclear-weapons free Korean peninsula.
South Korean newspapers said Seoul's idea focuses on a huge injection of aid and technical assistance akin to the U.S. Marshall Plan that was instrumental in putting western Europe back on its feet after World War Two.
Machimura rejected as unlikely the possibility that North Korea would test a nuclear device.
"The Japanese public reaction would be extremely grave. Not only the Japanese people, but all world public opinion would become their enemy," Machimura said.
"I don't think they will take the political risk of a foolish choice that would make everyone their enemy."
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