North Korea Looking To Negotiate Nuclear Testing

South Korean and Chinese defence officials met in Seoul on Friday with North Korea’s latest nuclear test high on the agenda, as pressure grows on Beijing to take a tougher line with ally Pyongyang.

The North’s statement is a repeat of past offers that have been rejected by the US, which wants Pyongyang to commit to a complete abandonment of nuclear weapons.

Asked whether Washington would consider a halt to its joint exercises with South Korea, US State Department spokesman John Kirby said lately that Washington had alliance commitments to Seoul.

USA deputy secretary of state Antony Blinken (from left), Japanese vice-foreign minister Akitaka Saiki and South Korea’s first vice-minister of foreign affairs Lim Sung Nam conclude a joint press conference at the Japanese foreign ministry in Tokyo on Saturday.

On Jan 6, North Korea said it had tested a hydrogen bomb, sparking condemnation from its neighbours and the United States, even as experts expressed doubt that the test was of a hydrogen bomb.

Shortly before taking office in 2009, he said he was willing to reconcile with the three countries, and during a 2007 debate said it was “ridiculous” to think that “somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them, which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of (the former President George W. Bush) administration”. “It’s the opposite of what we seek in the region”.

There was a legislation passed unanimously by the House of Representatives in the United States on Tuesday to further increase sanctions on North Korea.

Less than a week before the speech, North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test. Korea’s Joong Ang Daily quotes presidential adviser Ben Rhodes as saying that leaving North Korean leader Kim Jong Un out of the speech was a deliberate decision, depriving him of undue attention. So, it looks like being isolated internationally does not disturb North Korea much.

But Hecker, who has visited the North seven times since 2004, said in an interview with Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, that the most worrisome result of the test is that North Korea “will have achieved greater sophistication in their bomb design”. “It’s very hard to take any of their overtures very seriously”, he said.