Hypocrisy thick enough to slice and serve on a silver platter, topped with a sauce of underhanded intent. LmcB
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| U.S. President Barack Obama arrives at a U.S. military airbase in Osan, south of Seoul, on Wednesday. |
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SEOUL - U.S. President Barack Obama and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak called on North Korea on Thursday to return to stalled nuclear talks and end its atomic ambitions in return for massive economic aid.
"I hope that by accepting our proposal, the North will secure safety for itself, improve the quality of life for its people, and open the path to a new future," Lee said after talks with Obama according to a prepared text.
Obama, who arrived in Asia last week and flies home later in the day, and Lee have been putting pressure on the North by targeting its finances and telling Pyongyang it will win the money it needs to fix its broken economy and better global standing if it scraps its nuclear arms program.
Obama says his envoy on North Korea will travel to the country early next month for the first bilateral talks with the communist regime since he took office.
Obama said at a joint news conference in Seoul that Ambassador Stephen Bosworth will go to Pyongyang on Dec. 8.
North Korea has been pushing for bilateral talks with Washington to discuss the standoff over Pyongyang's nuclear program. The U.S. has agreed to the talks but has stressed they must lead to the resumption of six-nation disarmament negotiations.
Regional tensions
North Korea conducted a nuclear test and test-fired a series of missiles earlier this year.
North Korea stoked regional tension ahead of Obama's first tour of Asia since taking office, engaging a naval firefight with the South and declaring it had produced a fresh batch of arms-grade plutonium.
Earlier Thursday, Obama joined Lee at the Blue House, South Korea's version of the White House, where the U.S. leader took in spectacular views of the hills of Seoul on a chilly, gray morning. Obama stood on red-carpeted steps and looked out on military regiments in colorful garb and flag-waving children.
North Korea was at the top of the agenda when the two leaders met.
"They will be strongly pressing for North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons, but simultaneously letting the state know it has much to gain if it does," said Chung Seong-chang, an analyst at the Sejong Institute think tank near Seoul.
The Obama administration plans to send its first envoy to North Korea in the next few weeks to revive stalled six-way talks on ending the North's nuclear ambitions in return for massive aid to repair its failed economy and better global standing for the largely ostracized state.
The U.S. and South Korea want at a minimum for North Korea to return to a six-way agreement struck in 2005, to resume disabling its aging Yongbyon nuclear plant and to allow inspectors to verify claims it made about its atomic arsenal.
The visit to South Korea comes at the end of Obama's eight-day, four-country Asia tour. One area of conflict may be a trade deal struck two years ago under President George W. Bush and yet to be approved by legislatures in either country. Estimates said it could increase their $83 billion a year in two-way trade by about $20 billion.
South Korea insists it will not renegotiate the deal, the biggest trade pact for the United States since the NAFTA accord of the mid-1990s with its immediate neighbors. But Seoul has left the door open for discussions for side deals on areas such as the auto trade.
South Korea removed a potential source of friction by saying it at the end of October it would dispatch a security contingent of police and troops to Afghanistan to help support the U.S.-led mission there.
MSNBC
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