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          North Korea Calls for Six Party Talks Without Preconditions

   by VOA News

   North Korea is renewing its call for the resumption of multi-nation
   talks on its nuclear program without preconditions.
   Pyongyang's first vice foreign minister, Kim Kye Gwan, made the
   comments Wednesday at a forum in Beijing marking the 10th anniversary
   of the six-party nuclear talks.
   The North abandoned the talks in 2009 and has since conducted two
   nuclear tests, prompting expanded United Nations sanctions. The United
   States has ruled out the talks' resumption unless Pyongyang shows a
   willingness to give up its nuclear program.
   But Kim, the North's chief nuclear envoy, said attaching such
   preconditions causes "mistrust." He blamed Washington's "hostility
   toward North Korea" for increased tensions.
   Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi also said that "all parties should be
   devoted to restarting the six-party talks."
   The six-party talks involved North Korea, South Korea, the U.S., Japan,
   China, and Russia and were aimed at getting the North to abandon its
   nuclear program in exchange for aid.
   The comments follow fresh signs that North Korea has made good on a
   recent pledge to expand its nuclear weapons program.
   The U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University said last week
   that the North has likely restarted a shuttered plutonium reactor at
   its main Yongbyon nuclear complex. It based this conclusion on recent
   satellite photos that appear to show white steam emerging from a
   building near the reactor.
   The reactor was shut down in 2007 under an aid-for-disarmament deal
   worked out under the six-nation process, but Pyongyang warned in April
   that it would restart all operations at Yongbyon to boost its nuclear
   arsenal in terms of both "quantity and quality."
   Pyongyang conducted its third nuclear test in February. The United
   Nations responded by expanding sanctions against the North, which
   proceeded to launch weeks of angry war threats against the United
   States and South Korea.
   North Korea has since reduced its war-like rhetoric and reached several
   deals on cross-border projects with the South.
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   -without-preconditions/1751954.html

References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/north-korea-calls-for-six-party-talks-without-preconditions/1751954.html