Washington – Two leading Republican senators joined Democrats on Sunday in calling for direct talks with North Korea aimed at easing a nuclear standoff.
Sen. Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said direct talks, which the North long has coveted and which the Bush administration refuses, are “inevitable if this is to be resolved diplomatically.”
Calls for such talks have grown louder following North Korea’s nuclear test Oct. 9 and as diplomats worry about a second detonation.
The administration says it will have such talks only during six- nation negotiations meant to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear programs. Those talks have been stalled for nearly a year.
GOP Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the “issue is serious enough with North Korea, with their having nuclear weapons and the capacity to deliver them, that I think we ought to use every alternative, including direct bilateral talks.”
One day, said Lugar, R-Ind., an American president will be talking directly to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il “and his people and saying, in essence, in terms they can understand, ‘We are not going to overthrow you; we are not involved in regime change; you’re going to stay.’ … I hope it happens sooner rather than later.”
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Sunday ended a week-long trip to Asia and Russia to rally support for enforcing a U.N. Security Council resolution that punishes North Korea for the nuclear test.
A report Sunday said Kim told a Chinese envoy that future nuclear tests will hinge on U.S. policy toward his country. Kim also said he thinks Washington is trying to crush North Korea with its hostile policy and complained about U.S. financial penalties, the Kyodo News agency in Japan reported.
Sen. Joseph Biden, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said Japan, Russia, China and South Korea – the other members of the six-nation talks – have privately urged the United States to allow direct talks with the North.
Biden, D-Del., questioned what he said was the administration’s policy of trying to persuade the North to give up its nuclear bombs while also pursuing a change in government.
Lawmakers from both parties likened the crisis in North Korea to Iran, with which the U.S. also is in a nuclear standoff. Lugar and Specter joined Biden in calling for direct talks with Iran.
Lugar and Biden appeared on “Fox News Sunday,” while Specter was on CNN’s “Late Edition.”
