Politics > U.S. lawmakers tell N.Korea to end nuclear crisis

If the current round of six-party talks aimed at persuading Pyongyang to scrap its nuclear weapons program fails to bring results, the United States has said it may refer the issue to the U.N. Security Council.

North Korea says sanctions would be tantamount to a declaration of war.

"When the talks resume on September 12, we fully expect them to conclude in short order," Tom Lantos, the ranking Democrat in the House International Relations Committee, told a news conference in Beijing on Saturday after a four-day visit to Pyongyang.

"If we can't agree on principles within a reasonable span of time, there is very little patience in the American public to engage in protracted discussions," he said, referring to the verifiable denuclearisation of the peninsula.

The fourth round of six-party talks involving the two Koreas, the United States, Russia, Japan and host China is scheduled to resume in the week of September 12 after a five-week recess.

Japanese daily Mainichi Shimbun said on Saturday that the United States and North Korea would hold talks in Beijing around September 11.

U.S. delegate to the talks, Christopher Hill, would meet his North Korean counterpart Kim Kye-gwan, the North's Vice Foreign Minister, the Mainichi quoted diplomatic sources in Washington as saying.

North Korea had demanded the bilateral meeting as a condition for agreeing to resume the six-way talks, the Mainichi said.

REACTOR STICKING POINT

A light-water nuclear reactor was the major sticking point of the talks, said Jim Leach, a Republican from Iowa who is chairman of the Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific.

"They of course did (insist on a reactor) and that of course is the stickiest part of any discussions," he said.

"In theory you have the question from their perspective of the rights and needs of the sovereign state and from the American perspective, you have the question of trust, the issue of North Korean withdrawal from international sanction regimes, that is the NPT, and all that is associated with that," he said.

Leach was referring to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, from which North Korea withdrew in January 2003 after throwing out International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors in 2002.

Washington said in 2002 that Pyongyang had admitted to a secret program to enrich uranium in violation of a 1994 agreement, a claim North Korea later denied.

Ethnic Koreans abroad could become the greatest facilitators of foreign trade with Pyongyang if relations with Washington improved, Leach said.

Leach and Lantos said in a statement they urged North Korean officials to improve human rights and crack down on counterfeiting of foreign currencies.

They also said Washington would welcome the prospect of a tour by the Pyongyang circus and a visit by the North Korean wrestling team. The University of Iowa has invited North Korea to send a poet to its International Writers' program.

During their visit, Lantos and Leach held talks with Vice Foreign Minister Kim, Foreign Minister Paek Nam-sun, Vice President of the Supreme People's Assembly Kim Song-dae and General Li Chan-bok of the Korean People's Army.

(Additional reporting by Elaine Lies in Tokyo)

2005-09-03