BEIJING - South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon said during a trip to China the issue of a peaceful North Korean nuclear program needed to be discussed, Chinese state-run Xinhua news agency said on Saturday. âAll concerned sides still need to discuss about the DPRKâs right of peaceful use of nuclear energy,â said Ban.
| Translation: they're willing to let the NKors keep their nukes. The Skors have sold themselves out. |
Ban made the remark Friday after talks in Beijing with his Chinese counterpart Li Zhaoxing and State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan, a former foreign minister.
Six-nation talks on Pyongyangâs nuclear ambitions broke off last Sunday for three weeks without any sign of agreement on how to get the Stalinst state to abandon atomic weapons. The talks, which involve the two Koreas, the United States, China, Russia and Japan, are scheduled to resume in the final week of August.
| Not that there's any point now. |
A key sticking point was Pyongyangâs insistence on the right to retain peaceful atomic reactors to produce energy, a demand flatly rejected by the US.
During Fridayâs talks, State Councilor Tang told Ban the most recent round of six-party talks had âentered a new stage of substantial negotiationâ and made âpositive progress,â according to the Xinhua report. Tang said he hoped all sides would maintain contact and coordination, study hard on how to narrow their differences and facilitate the talks in order to bring about more progress, the agency said. |