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N. Korea for `binding' non-aggression pact with U.S.

By P. S. Suryanarayana

BANGKOK Jan. 31. The two-dimensional "nuclear crisis", confronting the international community, has begun to impinge on the political realities in the Asia-Pacific region.

China, the only permanent member of the U.N. Security Council from this region, has expressed itself on the Iraq issue in categorical terms, while North Korea set out a virtually non-negotiable position as regards the crisis that concerns Pyongyang's own suspected nuclear-weaponisation overdrive.

The North Korean Ambassador to China, Choe Jin-su, said in Beijing today that the questions on his country's alleged nuclear weapons programme could be settled only through a non-aggression pact with Washington. While there was nothing new about this position, the envoy underlined, for the first time, that North Korea was eager to enter into such an agreement on a firm and `binding' basis.

Any such pact could be deemed to be of `binding' value if the U.S. Congress ratifies a document of this magnitude, he said. The U.S. has consistently cold-shouldered all notions of a no-war pact with North Korea. At the same time, Pyongyang charged that the Bush administration had stockpiled nuclear weapons in one part of Korea (the southern one) while seeking to launch a "pre-emptive nuclear strike'' against the North.

This, the envoy said, was the crux of the nuclear crisis concerning his country.

On Iraq, the Chinese Foreign Minister, Tang Jiaxuan, has said in Beijing that the only `rational' means of addressing the doubts and concerns of the U.S. would be the search for a `political' solution "within the framework of the United Nations''.

While these comments would not amount to any shift in China's position, it is significant that Beijing has forcefully reaffirmed its stance in the context of the Bush administration's promise to take the U.N. Security Council into confidence about the unpublicised evidence, in America's possession, regarding Iraq's programmes of fabricating and stockpiling weapons of mass destruction, complete with delivery systems.

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