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Powell sees no progress from North Korean proposal

'We will not be intimidated'

Secretary of State Colin Powell talked about North Korea during testimony before a Senate panel Tuesday.
Secretary of State Colin Powell talked about North Korea during testimony before a Senate panel Tuesday.

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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Secretary of State Colin Powell said Tuesday a new proposal from North Korea aimed at resolving objections to its nuclear weapons program does little to settle the matter.

Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Powell said the United States is studying the proposal presented by North Korea last week during talks among U.S., North Korea and Chinese diplomats in Beijing.

Powell did not reveal specifics of the North Korean proposal beyond describing it as "leading to removal of the nuclear capability and maybe even deal with their missile capability."

"It's the kind of proposal we've seen previously from them. It's something we will study," Powell told senators. "But it is a proposal that is not going to take us in the direction we need to go."

Powell expressed both resolve against buckling under any pressure from North Korea and optimism that the differences with the communist nation could be resolved.

"We will not be intimidated by claims and threats" from North Korea about its nuclear program, Powell said, but he added, "the president still believes, and I still believe, a diplomatic solution is possible."

Powell referenced the North Korean proposal in comments to reporters Monday, prompting reports that North Korea was offering to halt nuclear development in return for economic and political concessions.

Powell did not address those reports Tuesday, but he declared, "as the president has said often and repeatedly -- and there should be no question about it -- we will not be blackmailed."

Describing the meeting last week in Beijing as "useful," Powell said the United States will continue to talk with allies in Asia and with the U.N. Security Council regarding North Korea, but added, "We will continue to hold North Korea accountable for its behavior in a variety of areas.

"They must be brought to understand that the presence of [nuclear] capability will buy them nothing. Only the total elimination of this kind of capability ... will bring about a solution to this problem."

He said the government in North Korea should concentrate its efforts on "taking care of 24 million starving people who deserve better than what they're getting from this regime."

At the White House, Press Secretary Ari Fleischer dismissed a suggestion of concessions to North Korea.

"The reason the world is in the spot it's in is because North Korea entered into an agreement and then did not keep up their terms of the agreement. They received aid in return for promising not to develop nuclear weapons. They took the aid, they ran with the aid and then they developed a nuclear weapons anyway," Fleischer said.

"So what the president has said is that we will not reward North Korea for bad behavior, that what we seek is North Korea's irrevocable and verifiable dismantlement of its nuclear weapons program, and we will not provide them inducements for doing what they always said they were going to do anyway."


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