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Reuters, January 22, 2005
North Korea's Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan said the country was a nuclear weapons state but its nuclear arsenal was defensive in nature and Pyongyang did not intend to possess it forever, Radio Free Asia quoted U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon as saying on Friday. Weldon, Republican of Pennsylvania, led a six-member congressional delegation to North Korea last week and met with its senior officials. North Korea aimed to denuclearise itself and it was willing to move toward that end in a transparent manner, Weldon quoted the North's Foreign Minister Paek Nam-sun as saying. "The president of the country said that he foresaw the day when America and North Korea would be friends," Weldon was quoted as telling a forum in Washington last week about his meeting with the North's number-two official and president of its assembly, Kim Yong-nam. Weldon has said since his return he had not met with the North's leader Kim Jong-il, who rules the country as chairman of its defence commission. North Korea is believed to possess one or two nuclear weapons and possibly more than eight. It has boasted to have transformed spent plutonium from reactors into materials for nuclear weapons, but has never formally declared to possess nuclear weapons. North and South Korea, the United States, Japan, Russia and China have met for three rounds of talks aimed at ending Pyongyang's nuclear weapons ambitions. North Korea has boycotted a fourth round planned before the end of September. © Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved. |
