By k on July 24, 2009

PHUKET, July 23 (TNA) - The United States and North Korea faced off in competing press conferences as the Phuket ASEAN meetings wound to a close, with warnings and recriminations cast in both directions.

Earlier intended arrangements to share the same venue to meet the press in end-to-end time slots and schedule delays and overruns, led to confusion among media and diplomats, as decorum broke down.

The United States will continue pressing North Korea under United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution No. 1874, according to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, while North Korea more firmly rejects pressure for nuclear disarmament.

The US top diplomat told a press conference following the 16th ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) meetings in Phuket that North Korean resistance to pressure from the international community to give up its nuclear programme ambitions could fuel a new nuclear arms race, but North Korea countered by saying that it had done nothing wrong.

Pyongyang also refused to comply with the agreement it had signed at the Six-Party Talks in 2005, she said.

Mrs Clinton said such a North Korean stance could trigger a new nuclear arms race, therefore, the United States, along with China, Russia, Japan and South Korea had agreed to put pressure against North Korea under Security Council Resolution No. 1874.

The US secretary of state said North Korea’s stance would cause problems not only for the US, but threatens security in the region and beyond. The international community had unanimously agreed that it could not accept North Korea’s attempt to develop nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

However, she stressed that the United States would apply peaceful measures in dealing with North Korea regarding its nuclear programme.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1874 was adopted unanimously on June 12, imposing further economic and commercial sanctions on North Korea and encourages UN member states to search North Korean cargoes, in the aftermath of an underground nuclear test conducted on May 25.

Mrs Clinton added that the US believed that North Korea has no other option but to return to the negotiation table and comply with the agreement forged at the six-party talks in 2005 and give full cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Meanwhile, the director-general of North Korean foreign ministry’s international organisation bureau, Ri Hung-Sik at his briefing on the sidelines of ARF called on the US to stop seeing North Korea as its enemy and give up its hostile policy toward Pyongyang, otherwise there would be no any talks in the future.

The North Korean official said that the six-party nuclear disarmament talks were dead. (TNA)

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