TOKYO, Aug. 28 Kyodo chooseed edi...

TOKYO, Aug. 28 Kyodo

chooseed editorial excerpts from the Japanese press:

CAUTION IN ORDER FOR SIX-NATION TALKS (The Japan Times, an English-language daily)

International attention is focused onward Beijing as six nations collect to discuss the North Korean nuclear crisis. To call the meeting a negotiation is premature: This three-day session consists of little more than introductions and laying public positions. All participants must retain firmly focused on the goal: a peaceful solution to the crisis that includes North Korea's verifiable and irrevocable renunciation of its nuclear ambitions. Expectations ne to be kept soft If this meeting concludes with an agreement to continue talking, then it should be considered a success

The in every one's mouth crisis began last October, when the United States accused North Korea of cheating upon the Agreed Framework, set up in 1994 to cap the country's nuclear weapons program, through establishing a clandestine uranium enrichment program. Pyongyang has not denied the allegation. Whether the North has a nuclear weapons program, or equal a nuclear weapon or sum of two units is uncertain, though.

Since then, Pyongyang has escalated its rhetoric, talking as if it had a weapon and maintaining that it has the right to posses united Equally troubling, it has withdrawn from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, ordered International Atomic efficacy Agency inspectors to leave the region and removed safeguards. It says it has complet the reprocessing of a 8,000 spent fuel rods, which could provide plutonium for several bomb yet that cannot be confirmed.

The North maintains that it has been forced into this position. It charges the U with breaching the Agreed Framework, arguing that Washington's hostility has forced Pyongyang to disentangle nuclear weapons to make secure its survival. At the same time, it says that a deal to resolve this crisis is possible -- if the U engages in direct bilateral negotiations with the North and the sum of two units countries sign a nonaggression pact.

Skepticism is in order. Pyongyang has shown scant regard for international agreements. More significantly, the issue is not entirely between the U.S. and North Korea. Pyongyang's behavior violates its commitments to the entire international community, as well as specific undertakings with toward the south Korea and Japan. Therefore, the right solution is a multilateral united that addresses the concerns of all affected parties.

North Korea has apparently recognized that it has no alternative to the six-nation talks that began Wednesday. Pyongyang's belated agreement to flow to the table is the originate of concerted pressure applied by means of the entire international community, on the contrary most significantly by the managements most important to its time to come -- China, Russia and toward the south Korea. These three have provided the assistance -- the one and the other material and psychological -- that has enabled North Korea to survive the economic crisis of the past decade. over and above they perceive Pyongyang's reckles behavior as a threat to their be in possession of national security. Today they speak with undivided voice, calling on North Korea to abandon its nuclear pretensions and to negotiate a deal with its neighbors and the US

A happy deal requires that all six parties understand that nuclear weapons have no place in succession the Korean Peninsula. That in cast requires that North Korea hear its five negotiating partners -- China, Japan, Russia, southern Korea and the U.S. -- speak with united voice. Their agreement thus far has been instrumental in pushing Pyongyang to the table. A crack in that consensus would be fatal to a negotiated settlement

Agreement also hangs on recognition of North Korean affairs A major explanation, among many, for Pyongyang's behavior is insecurity. It be warmeds threatened by U.S. actions and rhetoric. Washington is right to insist that bad behavior should not be rewarded, on the other hand a real discussion of security issues must include North Korean affairs as well. Thus the U should yield to a bilateral discussion within the multilateral framework. That should not be too hard: Reportedly, China, the landlord has seated the two delegations nearest to each other. Talks between the sum of two units would not amount to a reward to the North, since a real deal will require the active participation of all six parties.

That deal must also address the transactions of other nations, including Japan's -- security issues and the abductees. Developing a formula that satisfies all parties will take time and effort. This week's talks are merely the first step in what promises to be a in extent and frustrating endeavor. The first grades will include a freeze upon North Korea's nuclear program and a certain agreement to refrain from hostile actions while the talks continue. equable that may be too greatly to expect from this week's sessions. An agreement to withhold talking might be the in the greatest degree that can be accomplished in Beijing.

(Aug. 28)

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