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| U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Pakistan's Minister of Foreign Affairs Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi address the media prior to a bilateral meeting Thursday, July 23, 2009, at the ASEAN Regional Forum in Phuket, Thailand. |
PHUKET, Thailand (AP) -- North Korea refused to re-enter talks to terminate its nuclear weapons program Thursday despite a united front of Asian nations spearheaded by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to get it back to the bargaining table.
Warning that Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions could spark an arms race in the region, Clinton said the U.S. will continue to vigorously enforce tough U.N. sanctions, insist that it "irreversibly denuclearize" and press for a return to so-called six-party negotiations.
But she held out the prospect of restoring U.S. diplomatic ties and other incentives - actions the Obama administration would be willing to consider if the North Koreans dismantle their nuclear program.
Clinton said the communist regime had "no friends left," citing near unanimity among Asian nations, including China, on fully enforcing the latest U.N. sanctions against North Korea for its repeated nuclear and missile tests.
"We urge North Korea to return to the six-party talks, look beyond the past and join others in finding the way forward," said Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya, who hosted the ASEAN Regional Forum, a security conference among 27 countries and organizations that ended Thursday.
Clinton, who trumpeted Washington's renewed involvement in Asia during the conference, departed the resort island for Washington, wrapping up a weeklong trip to India and Thailand.
"North Korea's continued pursuit of its nuclear ambitions is sure to elevate tensions on the Korean peninsula and could provoke an arms race in the region," Clinton told a news conference before her departure.
Just moments before she spoke, a spokesman for the North Korean delegation said his government will not return to talks with the U.S., Japan, South Korea, China and Russia, citing the "deep-rooted anti-North Korean policy" of the United States.
"The six-party talks are over," Ri Hung Sik said, calling any proposed U.S. incentives "nonsense."
North Korea's Foreign Ministry, reacting to an earlier Clinton comment likening the regime to "small children" demanding attention, described her Thursday as "a funny lady" who sometimes "looks like a primary schoolgirl and sometimes a pensioner going shopping."
While voicing sharp criticism of Myanmar, the military-ruled Southeast Asian nation also known as Burma, Clinton also praised it for committing to enforce the U.N. sanctions against North Korea, calling it important in light of Myanmar's suspected secret military links to the North.
Earlier, Clinton called on Myanmar to unconditionally release democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who is accused of violating the terms of her house arrest and faces a five-year prison term.
On North Korea, Clinton stressed a point she has made repeatedly - that a fully nuclear North Korea might compel other countries in Asia to follow suit. She mentioned no names, but Japan and South Korea are thought to be among those that might go nuclear under circumstances in which they felt threatened by the North and less than fully confident of protection under a U.S. nuclear umbrella.
Clinton also said, "I wanted to make very clear that the United States does not seek any kind of offensive action against North Korea." She said a North Korean delegate at Thursday's meeting complained of being subjected to U.S. nuclear threats, but she said this showed a disconnect with reality, given that U.S. nuclear weapons were removed from South Korea nearly 20 years ago.
She said the world - including China, which has been North Korea's most loyal supporter - has made it clear to Pyongyang that it has "no place to go."
"They have no friends left that will protect them from the international community's efforts to move toward denuclearization," she said.
Clinton, who had no face-to-face meeting with the North Koreans in Phuket, said she was disappointed when the North Korean delegate refused to "recognize that North Korea has been on the wrong course" in his address to the conference.
"The question is: Where do we go from here?" she asked.
"The bottom line is this: If North Korea intends to engage in international commerce its vessels must conform to terms" of the U.N. sanctions, "or find no port," she said. "Our goal in enforcing these sanctions and others proposed earlier is not to create suffering or destabilize North Korea. Our quarrel is not with the North Korean people."
South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan said that the North's negotiating partners agreed in Phuket to "open the door for a dialogue" with Pyongyang while "faithfully" enforcing the U.N. sanctions.
Clinton said the Obama administration would soon send Philip Goldberg, its coordinator for implementing the U.N. sanctions that were approved by the U.N. Security Council in June, back to Asia for a new round of consultations on a joint enforcement strategy.
And, in what she called an illustration of U.S. concern about the welfare of North Korea's people, Clinton said the administration intends to appoint a special envoy to focus on North Korean human rights.
During her Thailand visit, Clinton repeatedly stressed that "the United States is back in Asia," seeking to intensify its involvement with the region on a wide range of issues after years of neglect by the former administration.
She wrapped up a flurry of meetings here with talks about the future of the Mekong River basin - increasingly beset by environmental problems - with Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Thailand.
As a sign of its deepening commitment, she said Washington would soon open a mission to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, which hosted the conference. The mission, to be based in Jakarta, Indonesia, will be headed by an ambassador.
