LEAD: U.S. seeking 5-way talks immediately after 3-way meeting

0 Comments | Asian Political News, July 28, 2003

WASHINGTON, July 22 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING WITH MORE INFO)

The United States is considering a plan to resume nuclear talks with North Korea under a two-phase format that would first involve the U.S., China and North Korea to be followed immediately by an expanded forum to include Japan and South Korea as well, the White House said Tuesday.

''There are some discussions going on with China that involved discussion of possible trilateral talks that would immediately be followed by talks with Japan and South Korea included,'' White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters.

McClellan denied a Washington Post report Tuesday that the U.S. is considering to give formal guarantees of nonaggression to North Korea.

''Nothing has changed in our position,'' he said.

North Korea first demanded a nonaggression treaty with the U.S. in October, but the U.S. has rejected it. Pyongyang renewed the demand Monday, urging the U.S. to drop its hostile policy and legally commit itself to nonaggression.

''We've made it very clear that we will not give in to blackmail. We will not grant inducements for the North to live up to its obligation,'' McClellan said.

On Tuesday, a high-ranking South Korean official said the U.S. is insisting that trilateral talks with North Korea and China and five-way talks that will also include Japan and South Korea should be held as one set of meeting.

If the parties involved agree on the holding of such talks, their date will be immediately fixed, the South Korean official said.

McClellan said there has been no agreement on the format of multilateral talks.

''We remain in close consultation with China, Japan, South Korea on the next round and how we proceed on talks, so that North Korea will verifiably, irreversibly and completely eliminate its nuclear weapons program,'' he said.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, meanwhile, stressed the need for the North Korean nuclear standoff to be resolved through multilateral talks involving regional powers.

''We'll not allow this to become, as some have suggested, once again a U.S.-North Korean problem,'' Powell told reporters. ''It is a problem between North Korea and its neighbors who are most directly threatened, and frankly, who have considerable influence on North Korea.''

Powell said a 1994 bilateral agreement with North Korea left nuclear capability in North Korea and allowed the North to find another way of developing nuclear arms through enriched uranium technology.

''We want a permanent solution this time that is irrevocable,'' he said.