North Korea will only return to six-party talks on its nuclear program if the United States drops sanctions against it, a North Korean official said on Wednesday as talks between Tokyo and Pyongyang ended in rancor.
“The condition is to remove the financial sanctions,” said Song Il Ho, North Korea’s ambassador to bilateral discussions with Japan in Beijing. “If the Japanese tell the U.S., they will actually listen to them more carefully.”
Song made the comments the day talks between Japan and North Korea wrapped up with both sides as far apart as ever over abductions of Japanese citizens and no agreement on when Pyongyang might return to six-way talks on its nuclear program.
But both countries agreed to keep talking and try to hold another round at an early date, Kyodo news agency cited Song as saying.
North Korea has said more than once it cannot return to the six-party talks, which group the two Koreas, Japan, Russia, the United States and host China, unless the United States drops the sanctions.
U.S. crackdown
The United States in recent months has cracked down on firms suspected of involvement in counterfeiting, money laundering and drug trafficking by North Korea.
Pyongyang is believed to earn as much as $1 billion annually from these activities, which U.S. officials say benefit the elite at the expense of the population.
South Korea’s foreign minister said he regretted that the North was making an issue of the U.S. crackdown.
“We feel it’s very regrettable and disappointing that issues outside the six-party talks have created a hurdle to resuming the talks,” Ban Ki-moon told a news briefing in Seoul.
“We hope that the North will return to the talks at an early date, and we have passed on that position to the North though different channels.”
North Korea has also threatened to halt talks with Seoul unless it pulls out of joint U.S.-South Korean military drills which Pyongyang sees as a preparation for an invasion, its official media reported on Wednesday.
The North’s communist party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, said in a news analysis it was wrong of South Korea to say it would hold exercises at about the same time the two Koreas were holding talks on military confidence-building measures.
Abductions
The talks to normalize diplomatic relations between North Korea and Japan hinge on the abductions.
North Korea has admitted kidnapping 13 Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s to help train spies and says eight of the 13 are dead, but Japan wants more information about the eight and another three it says were abducted.
Tokyo said there had been no progress on the issue.
“The other side has not responded to any of our requests regarding the abduction issue, so it is highly regrettable,” Japan’s top government spokesman Shinzo Abe told a news conference in Tokyo.
Asked whether Japan would increase pressure on North Korea as a result, Abe said Tokyo would not close the door on dialogue but added that talks must produce results.
“Our objective is not to merely hold talks. We want to seek a solution to the abduction issue through them.”
But Abe criticized Pyongyang’s demand to hand over Japanese members of non-governmental groups helping defectors leave the impoverished North.
“Their demand is outrageous. Making such a demand in itself would result in international criticism over North Korea’s human rights policy,” he said.
Song said North Korea had acknowledged it was wrong to carry out the abductions, but added Japan was exploiting the issue.
“We’ve tried really hard to provide Japan with all the necessary evidence,” he told reporters at the North Korean embassy in Beijing. “But it seems Japan is not responding with goodwill and is using it against us.”