Rice 'cautiously optimistic' on North Korea talks
Source: Reuters
(Adds quote, background, paragraph 2-3, 6-7) WASHINGTON, Feb 8 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Thursday she is cautiously optimistic that it may be possible to begin carrying out a September 2005 agreement on ending North Korea's nuclear programs. "The six-party talks have reconvened in Beijing just as we speak and I think we are cautiously optimistic that there may be some movement forward," Rice told a congressional panel. "I think there may be -- I am cautiously optimistic that we may be able to begin, again, to implement the joint statement of 2005 toward the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula," she added. Six-party talks among the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States resumed on Thursday in Beijing and South Korean officials said North Korea was willing to take initial steps towards ending its nuclear arms program. The talks in September 2005 produced an agreement under which North Korea said it was committed "to abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs." In return, the others held out economic, political and security incentives. The last round of six-party talks ended in December with no sign of progress. Rice, however, said "a lot has happened" since then, citing "good talks" the United States has had with each of the parties, including with North Korea in Berlin in mid-January. "I am, as I said, cautiously optimistic but I don't count my chickens until they are hatched," Rice later told lawmakers on the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
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