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U.S., N. Korea 'held secret talks'
TOKYO, Japan -- U.S. and North Korean representatives met secretly and informally last month to discuss Pyongyang's nuclear program, a Japanese newspaper has reported. But U.S. officials in Washington have played down the report, saying the Americans involved were private citizens and did not represent the Bush administration, Reuters news agency says. The talks -- the first meeting between representatives of both nations since January -- centered on how North Korea could verify abandoning its nuclear program, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper report. The meetings, held at the North Korean embassy in Berlin on February 20 and 21, failed to reach agreement on how a dismantlement of Pyongyang's uranium enrichment program could be proved, Asahi reported. Pyongyang proposed U.S. inspectors visit its facilities, but the Asahi report said the U.S. representatives wanted U.N. nuclear inspectors to verify any shutting down. Washington has thus far ruled out direct bilateral talks with North Korea, a demand Pyongyang says is the only way to resolve the four-month nuclear dispute. The U.S. says it wants multilateral talks and will not be blackmailed into face-to-face discussions. However, on Wednesday leading Democratic senators called on U.S. President George Bush to reverse that stance and begin direct talks. The Democrats said the White House had become paralyzed by divisions over what to do about the North Korean nuclear issue and by a likely war in Iraq. During that time North Korea was moving ahead towards developing nuclear weapons, and could have enough not only for its own use, but also to sell to terrorists, the senators said. (Direct talks) Bomber deterrentThe report came as the U.S. boosted its deployment of airborne bombers in the Pacific, strengthening its military presence within range of the Korean Peninsula. Pentagon officials say the move is designed to send a non-threatening message to North Korea warning it not to take advantage of the Iraqi situation and assume the U.S. military is distracted by events in the Gulf. A total of 24 aircraft -- Twelve B-1 bombers and 12 B-52 bombers -- and crews received deployment orders. (Bomber message) The U.S. said the deployment had been long planned and was not a direct response to what it called a "reckless" intercept of a U.S. spy plane last weekend by North Korean fighter jets.
North Korea has issued several warnings of war in recent weeks, saying the U.S. is preparing to strike. Washington has denied the accusations and says that although all options are open, it has no plans to launch any military action against Pyongyang. The nuclear standoff -- which began last October when U.S. officials said North Korea admitted to secretly pursuing a nuclear weapons program -- has intensified in the past month. The United States said in February that North Korea had reactivated its five-megawatt nuclear reactor -- a sign that Pyongyang might be going ahead with its nuclear weapons program. The plant had been mothballed since 1994. But two months ago, North Korea expelled the U.N. atomic inspectors at the plant and removed U.N. seals on the equipment in preparation for reactivating the reactor. North Korea, for its part, has never publicly acknowledged that it has a nuclear weapons program, saying only that it needs to restart its reactors for peaceful purposes because of an acute energy shortage. Reuters contributed to this report.
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