U.S. committed to "authentic" talks with DPRK over denuclearization: official

WASHINGTON, June 27 (Xinhua) -- The United States is committed to "authentic" negotiations with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) for the purpose of denuclearization, a senior American official said Thursday.

"The United States remains committed to authentic and credible negotiations to implement the September 2005 joint statement of the Six-Party Talks and to bring North Korea into compliance with its international obligations through irreversible steps leading to denuclearization," said James Zumwalt, acting principal deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs.

In the joint statement, the DPRK was committed to abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs and returning at an early date to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, while Washington affirmed that it has no nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula and has no intention to attack or invade the DPRK with nuclear or conventional weapons.

In his visit to China last week, DPRK's First Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan expressed hope for an eased situation on the peninsula, calling for dialogue to settle the nuclear issue and welcoming any forms of talks, including the six-party mechanism that involves the DPRK, the Republic of Korea (ROK), Japan, China, the U.S. and Russia.

"Despite the DPRK's recent overtures in the region and outreach to counterparts in the six-party process, we have yet to see concrete steps suggesting that North Korea is prepared to negotiate on the key issue of paramount concern: the verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," Zumwalt told the House Foreign Affairs Committee's Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific as well as the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade.

"We continue to coordinate closely with the ROK, as well as other six-party partners, on North Korea policy," he said.

He repeated Washington's position that the DPRK will not be accepted as a nuclear-armed state or rewarded for the absence of "bad behavior" or compensated merely for returning to dialogue.

"We have also made clear that U.S.-DPRK relations cannot fundamentally improve without sustained improvement in inter- Korean relations, which we support," he added.

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