North Korea can’t be accepted as nuclear power: Hillary Clinton
October 22, 2009 by Trend PK
Filed under World News
The United States will never have normal, sanctions-free ties with a nuclear-armed North Korea, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, rebuffing Pyongyang’s hopes to be accepted as a nuclear state.
While repeating the U.S. readiness for bilateral talks with North Korea, Clinton said in a speech the United States would not relax its sanctions on Pyongyang until it takes verifiable, irreversible steps toward complete denuclearization. “Current sanctions will not be relaxed until Pyongyang takes verifiable, irreversible steps toward complete denuclearization,” Clinton said in a speech hosted by the United States Institute for Peace think tank. “Its leaders should be under no illusion that the United States will ever have normal, sanctions-free relations with a nuclear-armed North Korea,” she added. “We are prepared to meet bilaterally with North Korea. But North Korea’s return to the negotiating table is not enough.” The United States hopes a bilateral dialogue may bring North Korea, which carried out its second nuclear test in May, back to wider talks on abandoning its nuclear programs. Clinton also said Iran must take quick action to carry out a plan under which it would send most of its low-enriched uranium (LEU) reserve to Russia and France for conversion into fuel for a nuclear medicine facility in Tehran. “The door is open for a better future with Iran. But the process of engagement cannot be open ended. We are not prepared to talk just for the sake of talking,” she said.
North Korea can’t be accepted as nuclear power: Hillary Clinton was first posted on October 22, 2009 at 12:13 pm.
