Washington, Aug 04: The United States is committed to finding a diplomatic solution to North Korea's nuclear standoff, despite harsh rhetoric by high US officials, is not trying to end communist leader Kim Jong II’s rule, Secretary of State Colin Powell said. Upcoming six-way talks over North Korea's nuclear ambitions, Powell said, also can allay the North's suspicions about a possible US invasion, without a non-aggression pact between the two countries, as Kim's government has demanded.
In an interview with selected US media outlets, Powell was asked about Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz's comment in early summer that Kim's administration was "teetering on the edge of economic collapse." Wolfowitz said that could be used as "a major point of leverage" against Kim. "I don't have a basis for saying there is an imminent collapse," Powell said in the interview, which the State Department made public yesterday.
"Right now there is a government there. It's been there for a lot of decades, and that's what i have to deal with," Powell said.
"What the situation would be following a catastrophic collapse, I don't really know. I don't think it's anything that any of North Korea's neighbors at the moment wish to see," he said. He said diplomacy is US policy as it tries to force North Korea to back away from its nuclear arms policy. North Korea is thought to have one or two weapons now and to have the ability to manufacture several more after reprocessing 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods. Bureau Report