Disarmament talks hinge upon North Korea

North Korea has yet to prove its commitments toward denuclearizing itself, a precondition to resuming the long-stalled six-party disarmament talks, the foreign ministry said Monday. The six-way dialogue, launched in 2003, has been stalled since late 2008 as the North continued its nuclear-arms development programs in defiance of the multilateral forum involving the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, China and Russia. "The timing of resuming the six-party talks depends on North Korea," the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a report submitted to the National Assembly. "North Korea should demonstrate its sincerity toward denuclearization by complying with international obligations and promises." The ministry report once again reasserted Seoul's position that Pyongyang should first prove its genuineness toward denucleariztion before being allowed to restart the disarmament-for-aid dialogue. China has recently revived efforts to restart the six-way forum, but Washington has expressed strong reservations about the resumption. "Dialogue for the sake of dialogue will only be used by the North to buy time to upgrade its nuclear arms further," the ministry report said. The North, through its cycle of provocation, conciliation and provocation again, has tried to officialize its possession of nuclear capacity, the report said. "In order to break the vicious circle, a dialogue should take place only when it can bring about substantive progress in denuclearizing the North," it said. All of the six-party forum members, except the North, share their opinions that they won't tolerate the North's nuclear possession and that some preconditions might be needed to restart the long-stalled talks, the ministry also said.