WASHINGTON, Sept. 14 (UPI) -- The United States is pressing China to push North Korea back to six-party talks meant to get Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons program.
"I think what you see out there is what I know as well, that the North Koreans are refusing to come back," said Peter Rodman, assistant defense secretary for international security affairs, in testimony to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission in Washington.
North Korea walked away from the talks -- which include the United States, South Korea, China, Russia and Japan -- nearly a year ago after the United States cracked down on money laundering. In February, the U.S. Treasury Department compelled a Macao bank to drop its North Korean clients.
"They're bringing in these separate -- the issues of our defensive measures in the financial field, which, in our view, are defense against some of their illicit activities. They choose to link these and refuse to come in, and we're not buying that. And we're putting the pressure on the Chinese and on them to come back to these talks," said Rodman.
North Korea broke a self-imposed six-year moratorium on missile launches in July, testing six Scuds and a longer-range missile that failed.
China is North Korea's primary patron and the country with the greatest leverage over the regime, but it has yet to convince North Korea to return to negotiations.
North Korea, for its part, wants to delink negotiations about its nuclear program from its conventional missile program. Those two issues were separated in negotiations with the Clinton administration but were joined together again under U.S. President George W. Bush. Exporting missiles and related technologies is one of North Korea's primary means of raising funds, and it wants economic inducements for giving up missile proliferation separate from its nuclear weapons program.
