Rice Defends 6-Way Talks as Only Way to Denuclearize N. Korea

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday that six-party talks are the only way to achieve North Korea's denuclearization, citing Pyongyang's common strategy of exploiting division in the international community, according to Yonhap News Monday.

"A lot has been achieved" in the multilateral talks over the past half year,'' the outgoing secretary said on NBC's "Meet the Press," including the shutdown of the North's main nuclear reactor, presentation of its nuclear list and blowing up of the cooling tower of the North's main nuclear reactor.

"I think more will be achieved, but it's really only going to be achieved in the context of the six parties, because if you don't have China and South Korea and Russia and Japan at the table, too, then the North can play the game that they used to play of getting benefits from other parts of the international community and refusing to carry forward on its obligations."

Rice rebuffed criticism that North Korea had "played" the U.S. in refusing to agree to a verification protocol on its nuclear facilities in the waning weeks of the Bush administration, saying, "Of course we didn't trust them."

"What we are negotiating is a verification protocol because nobody does trust them."

She said 80 percent of the verification protocol has been agreed upon with the North.

"What the North wouldn't do is go the last 20 percent, which is to clarify some of the elements of scientific procedures that might be used to sample the soil."

In the latest six-party talks earlier this month, North Korea refused to sign an agreement on sampling, saying it will sign later in the third and final phase, the dismantlement, under a multilateral nuclear deal signed by the six parties.

The North's refusal came amid concerns that Pyongyang is awaiting the inauguration of the Barack Obama administration in January for a possibly better deal.