Rice Meets Top N. Korean Diplomat
CBNNews.com
July 23, 2008
CBNNews.com - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met North Korea's top diplomat Wednesday, the first such meeting for four years.
Rice and North Korean Foreign Minister Pak Ui Chun were joined by four other nations involved in the effort to get the North to abandon atomic weapons -- China, Japan, Russia and South Korea.
"It was a good meeting," Rice said after the session. "No surprises."
Rice was expected to use the talks to press North Korea to approve a U.S.- drafted document to verify the country has complied with every demand for disarmament.
The draft calls for inspections of North Korean nuclear facilities, soil sampling, interviews with key scientists, and a role for U.N. atomic experts.
But North Korea insisted hours before the meeting that it had met its commitments and that Washington must abandon its "hostile policies" toward the regime.
"What is important in the next stage is that these measures should lead to a complete abandonment of hostile policies toward our republic," North Korean spokesman Ri Tong II said.
The spokesman said Pyongyang hoped the meeting would build momentum toward a formal end to the 1950-53 Korean War, which closed with an armistice rather than a peace treaty.
Wednesday's meeting marks the first time since 2004 that the top diplomats from the United States and North Korea have met face-to-face.
Source: The Associated Press, BBC
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