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| Come to the table for 'productive talks': US to N Korea |
| Lalit K Jha/ PTI / Washington Jun 03, 2009, 10:14 IST |
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The US has asked North Korea to come to the negotiating "table" for "productive talks" to diffuse the crisis that has errupted after Pyongyang tested nuclear weapon and launched series of missiles.
Asking North Korea to take "necessary steps" to find a solution to the crisis, the US said the communist nation is "isolating" itself from the international community by its actions, as Washington strived to build a "unified and strong" global "response" against it.
"Because the actions that they're undertaking, as we've said countless times, in the past many weeks, are simply steps that further isolate them from the world," the White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said.
"What is tremendously important is that the administration and, I think, all our allies involved, in the talks, believe that it's important for North Korea to take the necessary steps, to live up to the responsibilities and the agreements that it entered into; that coming back to the table, to have productive talks, are important," Gibbs said.
We are having very good and productive discussions. I think we are making progress, and I am hopeful that in due course we will be producing a very worthy and strong resolution, the US Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, told reporters at the UN headquarters in New York.
The Deputy Secretary of State, James Steinberg said, "We're working very closely to try to find common ground on that and I think we're going to come up with a good result in New York and I look forward to my efforts and conversations not only on the steps that we'll take in adopting a new resolution but how we'll follow up with that afterwards."
Meanwhile the State Department said "there is a unity of purpose" among all the major powers of the world on this issue here, to hold the North accountable for the bellicose actions and threats that it has made over the last several weeks, months.
"We're going to continue to work that issue up in New York," Wood said.
"Just because it's taking more time, you shouldn't read it in any way as giving the North more leverage or us losing leverage. It's not really a question of leverage, it's a question of making sure that we get the strongest possible response to the North's activities," Wood said.
If it takes some time, so be it. We want to make sure we get it right, we send that strong, unified response and hold the North accountable for its actions, Wood said when asked why there is delay in an unified response from the United Nations Security Council.
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