N Korea can prosper if it gives up nuclear weapons: Obama

North Korea can achieve security and prosperity if it honours its commitment to give up nuclear weapons, US President Barack Obama said in an interview published on Friday.

Seoul: North Korea can achieve security and
prosperity if it honours its commitment to give up nuclear
weapons, US President Barack Obama said in an interview
published on Friday.

The impoverished communist state`s nuclear and missile
programmes are a grave concern to the world and make the North
itself less secure, he told South Korea`s Yonhap news agency
in a written interview.

But "negotiations in the six-party process to achieve the
peaceful denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula can bring
security and prosperity to North Korea and the region," Obama
said.

The North quit the six-party forum in April and staged
its second nuclear weapons test the following month. It now
says it is ready to return to the talks but only after
bilateral discussions with Washington to ease hostility.

The US special envoy to North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, is
to visit Pyongyang, probably before the end of the year. Obama
reiterated that those talks would be aimed only at securing
the North`s return to the six-party forum, which groups the
two Koreas, the United States, China, Russia and Japan.

"We are open to a bilateral meeting as part of the
six-party process if that will lead to an expeditious
resumption of the denuclearisation negotiations," he told
Yonhap.

Obama said UN member states are enforcing tougher
sanctions imposed following the North`s latest nuclear and
missile tests because the weapons programmes represent "a
threat to peace and security".

Bureau Report

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