Two Republican senators call for direct talks with North Korea

[dajoki]

Irish Examiner
http://www.irishexaminer.com/irishexaminer/pages/story.aspx-qqqg=world-qqqm=world-qqqa=world-qqqid=16441-qqqx=1.asp

23 October 2006

Republicans join calls for direct talks over Korean nukes

By Foster Klug
TWO leading Republican senators joined Democrats yesterday in calling for direct talks between the US and North Korea aimed at easing a nuclear standoff.


Senator Richard Lugar, chairman of the senate foreign relations committee, said direct talks, which North Korea has long coveted and which the Bush administration refuses, are “inevitable if this is to be resolved diplomatically”.

Calls for such talks have grown louder following North Korea’s nuclear test on October 9 and as diplomats worry about a second detonation. The US says it will only have such talks during six-nation negotiations meant to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear programmes. Those talks have been stalled for nearly a year.

Meanwhile, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il told a Chinese envoy that, while Pyongyang has no immediate plan to carry out another nuclear test, whether it will do so hinges on US policy towards the country.

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Meanwhile, Republican senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, chairman of the senate judiciary committee, said the “issue is serious enough, with their having nuclear weapons and the capacity to deliver them, that I think we ought to use every alternative, including direct bilateral talks”.

[babylonsister]

1. Luger and Specter; the rats are jumping overboard. nt

[Supersedeas]

2. Nothing to see here...this is not part of Condi's marching orders to the

Media

[dajoki]

3. No it isn't n/t