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Albright and Paek hold "friendly" historic talks |
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July 29, 2000
BANGKOK (AP) - U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright held what she called "friendly" talks Friday with North Korea's foreign minister in the highest-level meeting between the two countries in a half-century of hostility. But Albright told reporters that she learned little from Paek Nam Sun about the communist country's reported intentions to curb its ominous missile program, a major topic at an Asian security forum this week. "My meeting with Foreign Minister Paek constitutes a substantively modest but symbolically historic step away from the sterility and hostility of the past," Albright said. The meeting ran nearly an hour over the allotted 20 minutes. Paek gave Albright no details of an offer, made recently by North Korean leader Kim Jong Il to Russia's president, to transform the North's missile program into peaceful efforts to launch satellites into space. "I was direct in stating American concerns about the missile threat, nuclear weapons-related activity," Albright said. "We discussed it, but I was not able to glean." U.S. officials have suggested that North Korea could launch satellites from neutral nations, but should not be allowed technology for use on its own soil that that might end up in improved missiles. Both sides said the meeting added to the thaw on the Korean peninsula since the summit between the North and South Korean leaders in June, raising hopes for an end to one of the world's most intractable conflicts. "I remain realistic in expectations and fully committed to coordination with our allies," Albright said. "I'm also somewhat more hopeful than before for the long-term stability on the Korean peninsula and throughout the region." North Korea issued a statement saying the two sides had "serious deliberations on the ways to normalize and expand" relations and agreed that recent developments had led to a "positive atmosphere." New Zealand meanwhile normalized relations with North Korea, the second country after Canada to do so this week. At the meeting's start, Albright smiled and shook hands with Paek three times for the benefit of television cameras. She told reporters that such a handshake was not something she could have forseen, but described Paek as "very nice." "He said he had passed me last year at the General Assembly and we had not spoken to each other," she said. "He did, however, tell me I looked younger this year." Albright wore a canary yellow dress, similar to her last trip to Asia when a "sunshine dress" paid tribute to South Korean President Kim Dae-jung's so-called sunshine policy to build peace with the North. Paek was asked before the talks about news reports that North Korea would dispatch a high-level delegation to Washington to discuss improving ties. The Americans have been seeking such an encounter, Paek told reporters, "but the atmosphere is not ripe yet." Before such a meeting takes place, North Korea has said that it wants the U.S. to end economic sanctions and remove it from the list of countries sponsoring terrorism. A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the topic was discussed and would be taken up again. Talks on all issues could be pursued, especially at the United Nations. After a half-century of hot and cold war on the Korean peninsula, 37,000 U.S. troops remain in South Korea. The talks were another milestone in North Korea's coming-out into the wider world - seen as motivated by the need for help to revive its nearly dead communist economy. "I made it very clear that it was very important to get past the 50 years of hostility and look toward the future," Albright said. The North's missile program raises jitters on both sides of the Pacific, fueling the U.S. drive to erect a national missile defense that most countries fear will disrupt existing arms treaties. In June, Kim Jong Il reaffirmed a moratorium on long-range missile launches. A shot over Japan in 1998 woke the world up to the country's growing prowess in such weapons Albright nearly lost a chance to meet the North Korean until she was freed from Washington by the collapse of the Mideast peace summit. She missed Thursday's induction of North Korea into the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum, Asia's largest security conference. |