N. Korea, Iran say they will continue nuclear efforts
Countries defy US efforts to derail their 'peaceful' nuclear programs.
In an announcement likely to set up a collision with the United States, North Korea announced Monday that it will continue to
demand the right to "peaceful" use of atomic energy.
CNN reports that the six-nation talks – which also include China, Japan, Russia, and South Korea –
resumed Tuesday in Beijing.
AFXNews reports that the North Korea statement is the same demand that broke up the talks five weeks ago.
(North Korea) has a right on peaceful nuclear activity. This right is neither awarded nor needs to be approved by others,' the country's chief envoy to the talks, Kim Gye-gwan, told the official
Xinhua news agency at Pyongyang airport.
'We have this right, and the more important thing is that we should use this right. If the United States tries to set obstacles to the DPRK's (North Korea) using this right, we can utterly not accept that.'
Bloomberg News reports that the
US rejected North Korea's stance. US chief negotiator Christopher Hill said Monday in Beijing that North Korea's position "does seem to be wrong."
Still, US negotiators said they will renew efforts to convince North Korea to give up its civilian reactors at the talks. 'I hope the Democratic People's Republic of Korea delegation has done some homework,' Hill said. 'We had more than four weeks to look at the text of the proposed agreement.'
The talks will last 'as long as necessary and will not have a deadline,' China's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Meanwhile,
Reuters reports that Iran is "
working hard to gather allies" to defeat a US-European attempt to "refer Tehran to the UN Security Council because of their fears it may be developing nuclear weapons."
EU diplomats said Iran was focusing its lobbying efforts on key International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board members such as China, Russia, India, Pakistan, South Africa and other non-aligned developing states, which have a good deal of sympathy for Tehran's arguments. In the past two weeks, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, visited Pakistan and India. While successfully negotiating a deal to allow Iranian natural gas to pass through Pakistan to India,
Xinhua reports he also
persuaded both countries to publicly support Tehran's position for "a peaceful resolution of Iran's nuclear issue and Iran's right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy in accordance with related international conventions."
Iran is continuing its diplomatic offensive this week. Mikhail Zygar and Dmitry Sidorov write in a column for
MosNews that Iranian Vice-President Gholamreza Aghazadeh is in Moscow to discuss next week's IAEA meeting, where Iran's nuclear program will be the main topic. Russia has indicated that
it will support Iran, and fight to keep it from being referred to the UN Security Council, where it would probably face sanctions. Mr. Zygar and Mr. Sidorov say this is "an extremely important victory for the Iranians," and a move likely to "cause the Kremlin a lot of problems."
Russian authorities are relying on the fact that the world community will not want to punish Iran too severely and that the Europeans will not vote to transfer the dossier to the UN Security Council. Ariel Cohen, an expert with the Heritage Foundation, who participated in a meeting with Putin, Ivanov and Lavrov in Moscow, told [
MosNews] that 'on the Iran subject they were telling mutually exclusive things: from one side ��� the Russian position is close to the Europeans', but from the other side ��� the Kremlin is against passing the dossier to the UN Security Council.'
According to Cohen's opinion, 'Russia does not want to spoil its relationship with Iran, because it sees Tehran as a member of a multi-polar coalition, which also includes China, and plays a role of the counter-balance for the US.'
Russia has been a nuclear partner with Iran for some years. Russian engineers are currently building
a nuclear plant at Bushehr, in southern Iran.
The US, however, is not taking the Iranian initiative lightly.
The New York Times reported last Friday that both President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will speak with the leaders of these countries during this week's UN summit in New York in
an effort to change their minds on the issue. But experts say their task will not be an easy one.
Lacking a consensus, the United States and its European allies have shifted strategy and are now trying to get the matter referred to the Security Council by a simple majority of the agency's board, a step that officials in Vienna say is without precedent. North Korea was referred to the United Nations, for example, by consensus.
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