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Japan sets terms for six-party talks

P. S. Suryanarayana

SINGAPORE: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday asserted that his country "cannot allow North Korea to possess nuclear weapons." Speaking to journalists in Tokyo, Mr. Abe maintained that the six-party talks, now being sought to be revived, would take place only on this basis.

His comments acquired importance as a direct response to the stand by Pyongyang's chief negotiator, Kim Kye-gwan, that North Korea was now ready to rejoin the stalled six-party talks as a nuclear-armed state.

Delegates in Beijing

Mr. Abe said the resumption of the six-party talks "will have to be the first concrete step for North Korea to scrap its nuclear programmes."

The six parties to the talks on the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula are the United States, China as the host, the two Koreas, Japan and Russia. Delegates from all but Russia were in Beijing on Tuesday to discuss the timing and modalities for re-starting these talks. United States President George W. Bush telephoned his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, to discuss the issue.

North Korea, which conducted its first test of the atom bomb on October 9, has been saying, for some time now, that the weapon was not made only to be abandoned.

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