U.S. envoy denies bid to change N.K. regime

U.S. ambassador to South Korea Kathleen Stephens said yesterday her country has no intention of toppling the North Korean regime by force, a day after Pyongyang called the ongoing South Korea-U.S. military drill "a rehearsal for nuclear attack."

"The United States has no hostile intent toward the people of North Korea nor are we threatening to change the North Korean regime through force," Stephens told a forum in Seoul hosted by a group of nongovernmental organizations dedicated to unification.

"Our aim is to find diplomatic solutions to working with North Korea."

North Korea claims the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle exercise, an annual South Korea-U.S. joint military drill that began Monday across the South for an 11-day run, demonstrates persisting U.S. hostilities against the communist country. The North said it would continue to bolster its nuclear arms development if the United States does not drop what Pyongyang called military threats and provocations.

Stephens said Washington would not accept North Korea as a nuclear weapons state and that it was concerned about the North exporting nuclear or ballistic missile-related parts to Myanmar or Iran.



The United States has continnued to urge the North to fulfill its promise to abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs as stated in the six-party agreement signed on Sept. 19, 2005.

The 2005 joint statement also said "the directly related parties will negotiate a permanent peace regime on the Korean Peninsula at an appropriate separate forum."

North Korea said in January it would return to the six-party talks only if the United Nations lifts sanctions and the United States agrees to discuss a peace treaty to replace the 1953 Korean War Armistice, under which the two Koreas are technically still at war.

Talks among the nuclear envoys of North Korea, China, the United States and South Korea have been going to coordinate conditions to resume the six-nation talks.

"The United States remains willing to engage North Korea bilaterally within the framework of the six-party process," Stephens said.

"North Korea has shown some positive signs indicating its willingness to return to the six-party talks on its nuclear ambitions."

"The language has become more positive," she said. "We need to see actions."

Stephens said that Washington considers humanitarian aid to North Korea separate from other issues, but that providing such aid would be reviewed when it is prepared to monitor the North`s distribution of food aid.

As for the revision of an atomic energy agreement between South Korea and the United States and the issue of reprocessing nuclear waste, Stephens said top scientists in both countries would be able to find the best solution.

(sophie@heraldm.com)



By Kim So-hyun