HANOI, Vietnam – North Korea's development of nuclear weapons is unacceptable to all five countries that are expected to meet soon for talks with the reclusive communist country, the top U.S. nuclear envoy said Wednesday.
"No one — China, nor Russia nor any of the three of us — has any intention of accepting North Korea as a nuclear state. I think we've all made that all very clear," Christopher Hill said after meeting for two hours with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts.
"We also agreed that North Korea needs to fulfill its obligations in the September agreement to denuclearize," Hill said on a day packed with shuttle diplomacy on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific summit.
He was referring to a 2005 deal under which North Korea agreed to drop its nuclear weapons program in exchange for aid and security guarantees. Instead, it boycotted follow-up talks two months later, then carried out its first nuclear weapons test on Oct. 9.
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