U.S. urges N. Korea to stop provocations, return to 6-way talks

By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, June 15 (Yonhap) -- The United States Monday repeated its call on
North Korea to return to the six-party talks on ending its nuclear weapons
programs in compliance with the U.N. Security Council resolution adopted after
North Korea's second nuclear test last month.

"North Korea needs to give up all this rhetoric and belligerent actions and
return to the six-party talks unconditionally," State Department spokesman Ian
Kelly said in a daily news briefing.
Kelly was responding to North Korea's threat to begin enriching uranium for bomb
making, weaponize all the plutonium it has and wage nuclear war if attacked, in
response to the resolution that bans the North from any further nuclear and
ballistic missile tests and imposes further financial sanctions and an overall
arms embargo, including cargo interdictions.
"We've seen North Korea's announcement that it will weaponize the plutonium
extracted from spent fuel reprocessing at the Yongbyon nuclear facility, and that
it's beginning uranium enrichment work," Kelly said. "As required by Security
Council 1874, North Korea should abandon all its nuclear programs in a complete,
verifiable and irreversible manner."
The spokesman said that he did not "want to get into a situation where we're
responding to every bellicose and dire action and statement coming out of North
Korea."
Vice President Joe Biden Sunday reaffirmed the Obama administration's intent to
implement the sanctions.
"It is important that we make sure those sanctions stick and those sanctions
prohibit them from exporting or importing weapons," he said on an NBC program.
"This is a matter of us now keeping the pressure on."
Biden would not speculate on North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's intentions for the
recent provocations.
"Whether this is about succession -- wanting his son to succeed him, whether or
not he's looking for respect, whether or not he really wants a nuclear capability
to threaten the region, we can't guess his motives," he said. "We just have to
deal with the reality that a North Korea that is either proliferating weapons
and/or missiles, or a North Korea that is using those weapons."
North Korea's recent provocations are widely seen as an attempt by Kim to make
way for his third and youngest son, Jong-un, to consolidate power following
reports that the senior Kim is in failing health after a stroke last summer.
hdh@yna.co.kr
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