WASHINGTON - The US ambassador to the United Nations yesterday rejected a North Korean demand for more food aid as a condition for taking part in four-party peace talks aimed at formally ending the Korean War.
"We explicitly reject the linkage," Ambassador Bill Richardson said in a telephone interview. But he predicted the world community might respond more positively to North Korea's needs if it joined the talks.
The South Korean Foreign Ministry in Seoul said North Korea conditionally offered to join the talks at a meeting in New York on Wednesday of working-level officials from the two Koreas and the United States. The fourth party to the talks would be China.