Article by Ali Usman Hali
Pyongyang, North Korea (CNN) — New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson provided North Korea with a succession of proposals Saturday in what he described as a “good meeting” with the country’s chief nuclear speaker.
Richardson declined to give details about his proposals, and it was indistinct how North Korea responded to them.
Saturday’s hour-and-a-half meeting with Kim Gye Gwan, North Korea’s chief nuclear speaker and the man who invited Richardson to North Korea, was the newest stop on a four-day trip aimed at reduction tensions in the region.
“Kim Gye Gwan essentially told Richardson he didn’t sleep last night because of the tensions on the Korean cape. It’s a very serious situation,” said CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, who is itinerant with the governor in North Korea.
Richardson said earlier Saturday he was worried about escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula, where he is urging “maximum” restraint ahead of planned military exercises.
“This is a tinderbox,” he told Blitzer. “Right now, my objective is to say — tamp things down.”
Both Koreas have traded tough talk and conducted violent military drills in the weeks after North Korea shelled a South Korean land mass last month.
The tough talk sustained Friday as N. Korea warned it would launch a military strike against the South if Seoul goes in front with live-fire drills near Yeonpyeong Island throughout the next few days, North Korea’s state-run KCNA reported.
The South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff had said that the movements would take place in the seas southwest of the island among December 18 and 21. But on Saturday the section said the drill would not happen this weekend because of bad weather.
Richardson, a former U.N. ambassador, at home in N. Korea Thursday on a four-day trip he hopes will help to ease tensions in the region.
“Let’s cool things down. No response. Let the exercises take place,” said Richardson, who added: “On all sides, I’m influence restraint.”
He met with a vice priest of N. Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday and is planned to convene with a top North Korean general Sunday.
“Meeting a top military person is important,” said Richardson, who has hosted a North Korean allocation in New Mexico in the past. “Hopefully, we can keep things from dismissal up.”
Richardson is not in N. Korea as a bureaucrat U.S. envoy.
Tensions mounted among the Koreas on November 23, when North Korea shelled Yeonpyeong Island, which dishonesty in South Korean territory. The assault killed two marines and two civilians and injured 18 people.
The North has accused the South of infuriating the attack because shells from a South Korean military drill landed in the North’s waters.The U.S. military has said it is worried that South Korea’s scheduled exercises could spark an unmanageable clash with the North, but the State Department said the exercises are not meant to be threatening or challenging.
About the Author
South Korea has admitted it fired artillery shells that triggered an early morning clash with North Korea. However it says it was part of a military drill and denied it was directed at the North. Earlier Seoul blamed the North for what it called an unprovoked shelling of its island. Pyongyang claimed the South had violated its maritime border during the military drills. Seoul has since threatened its neighbour with what it called ‘enormous retaliation’. RT on Facebook: www.facebook.com RT on Twitter: twitter.com
