 | Check, please, I have a plane to catch. |
BEIJING (AP) - South Korea urged delegates to six-nation talks on North Korea's nuclear disarmament to create an atmosphere of trust hours before participants began another round of negotiations in Beijing on Wednesday.
| Why? If we don't trust them because they consistently act unreasonably, why would we pretend to trust them? Why isn't the onus upon them to build an atmosphere of trust for us? |
Tensions between the United States and North Korea, however, were already building. The communist country criticized President Bush for calling North Korean leader Kim Jong Il a 'thug' 'goon' 'dictator' 'genocidal mass murderer' "tyrant," saying the remark put the prospects of the talks in doubt.
| There's always something, isn't there? |
South Korea's Deputy Foreign Minister Song Min-soon said he met with Kim Gye Gwan, the North's envoy, Tuesday to discuss the implementation of a joint statement issued at the end of the last round of talks in September. "We compared North Korea's thoughts with ours," Song told reporters after the 80-minute meeting.
| "Truly, our hearts were one..." |
"There are similar points as well as different points." He said all parties must "take actions mutually that are conducive to create confidence."
| No thanks, we'll stick to our principles. |
Christopher Hill, the chief U.S. negotiator and assistant secretary of state for Asia affairs, said the key to the talks "is to see how we can take an agreement in principle and begin to see how an agreement in principle can be put into practice."
| He means with some sort of verification... |
But Pyongyang said Bush's comment cast a shadow over the talks. "If this is true, what he uttered is a blatant violation of the spirit of the joint statement of the six-party talks, which calls for 'respect for sovereignty' and 'peaceful coexistence,'" a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman was quoted as saying by the North's official Korean Central News Agency.
| How so? They remain a sovreign nation. They're just ruled by a megalomaniacal tyrant. |
"These remarks ... arouse our serious concern about the prospect of implementing the joint statement and deprive us of any trust in the negotiators of the U.S. side," said the spokesman, who was not identified.
| We respect your sovereignty. After all, we haven't invaded you. Yet. |
Analysts cautioned against expecting a breakthrough.
| Whatever would we do without analysts? |
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