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North Korea Says It Won't Join Nuke Talks NewsMax WiresSEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea said Thursday it will not join six-nation talks aimed at ending its nuclear weapons program until rival South Korea fully discloses the details of secret atomic experiments conducted years ago. The communist state relayed its position when British Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammell visited Pyongyang earlier this week, an unidentified spokesman of the North Korean Foreign Ministry told the North's official news agency, KCNA. Story Continues Below The comments further clouded U.S.-led international efforts to hold a new round of six-nation talks on the North's nuclear programs this month as planned. During Rammell's visit, North Korea ``clarified its stand that it can never sit at the table to negotiate its nuclear weapon program unless truth about the secret nuclear experiments in South Korea is fully probed,'' KCNA quoted the North Korean spokesman as saying. South Korea recently acknowledged that it conducted a plutonium-based nuclear experiment more than 20 years ago. That admission came shortly after it said it conducted a uranium-enrichment experiment four years ago. Plutonium and enriched uranium are two key ingredients of nuclear weapons. Although South Korea denied any ambition to possess nuclear arms, the controversy over its experiments has threatened to further disrupt troubled efforts to persuade North Korea to dismantle its nuclear weapons programs. Three rounds of talks by China, the two Koreas, the United States, Japan and Russia haven't produced major progress toward settling the North Korean nuclear dispute. © 2000 The Associated Press
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