Seoul — Former U.S. president Bill Clinton urged the Bush administration Friday to sign a nonaggression pact with North Korea to help end a year-long standoff over Pyongyang's nuclear program.
Addressing a crowd of South Korean politicians and celebrities, Mr. Clinton expressed hope that six-nation talks on the nuclear crisis — which China is trying to put together, possibly for December — would produce a “verifiable” agreement in which impoverished North Korea would give up its nuclear and missile ambitions in return for food, energy and other economic aid.
“And I would include an agreement between the United States and North Korea on nonaggression, because I don't think our country will ever be aggressive against anyone who did not violate an agreement first,” Mr. Clinton said.
“I don't think that we'd lose much by giving them an agreement that requires good conduct on their behalf as well as ours. That is what I hope and believe can be done.”
U.S. President George W. Bush has ruled out a nonaggression treaty with Pyongyang, but he has offered to provide written security assurances in return for the dismantling of North Korea's nuclear-weapons program.
While Mr. Clinton was in office, the United States and North Korea signed an agreement in which Pyongyang promised to freeze its nuclear activities in exchange for better ties and economic aid. The 1994 accord collapsed last year when U.S. officials said Pyongyang admitted running a secret weapons program.
Washington and its allies later cut off shipments of free oil. North Korea then announced that it was extracting plutonium from spent nuclear fuel rods to build more bombs.
“If there is no other way (for North Korea) to make a living, the temptations of selling these bombs and missiles are very great,” Mr. Clinton said.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly plans to meet with Japanese and South Korean officials next week to prepare for a new round of six-nation talks aimed at ending the nuclear crisis.
Mr. Kelly arrives in Tokyo on Sunday for a three-day stopover before holding three days of talks in Seoul starting Wednesday.
Representatives of the United States, the two Koreas, China, Japan and Russia held their first six-nation talks in Beijing in August. But the meeting ended without agreement on when to meet again.
Diplomatic efforts to resume negotiations gained speed after North Korea agreed “in principle” last month to return to the negotiating table.
China, North Korea's major ally, has sent diplomats to North Korea, the United States, South Korea and Japan, to try to jump-start the second round, likely in December.
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo pledged Friday to resolve the standoff peacefully and arrange new talks, but he gave no word on when more negotiations might be held.
Mr. Dai, who was in Tokyo to discuss the nuclear dispute, told Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi that China was working to schedule a meeting soon, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said.
