North Korea on Saturday reaffirmed its willingness to rejoin suspended six-party talks on its nuclear programs.
“There has been no change in our determination to join the six-party talks and to impliment Sept. 19 joint declaration to make the Korean Peninsula free of nuclear weapons,” a North Korean spokesman said, concerning the outcome of the visit by the North’s First Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan to Beijing.
He made the remark in answer to the question by a reporter from the North’s Korean Central News Agency in Pyongyang.
“The delegation led by First Vice Foreign Minister Kim discussed ways of resuming the six-party talks, bilateral(North Korea-China) relations and other regional political issues surrounding the Korean Peninsula in honest and frankly in Beijing,” the North Korean news agency quoted the unidentified spokesman as saying. Kim visited Beijing Oct. 12-16 at the invitation of the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
“We are ready for the resumption of the six-party talks. But we will not hurry in the circumstances that the United States and a few participants are not ready for the talks,” said the spokesman. “We have decided to make further efforts with more patience and without hurry.”
Vice Foreign Minister Kim, who for years has served as Pyongyang's top envoy to six-party nuclear disarmament talks, met with China's nuclear envoy Wu Dawei twice and Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi once on the issue, sources said.
“We are ready to implement the Sept. 19 joint declaration on nuclear disarmament,” said Vice Minister Kim also told foreign correspondents in Beijing Friday, over the resumption of the six-party talks.