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Politics

2 GOP senators call for direct talks with N. Korea

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published October 23, 2006

WASHINGTON - Two leading Republican senators joined Democrats on Sunday in calling for direct talks with North Korea to ease a nuclear standoff.

Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said direct talks, long coveted by the North but refused by the Bush administration, are "inevitable if this is to be resolved diplomatically."

Calls for such talks have grown louder since North Korea's nuclear test Oct. 9 and as diplomats worry about a second detonation.

The administration says it will only have such talks during six-nation negotiations meant to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear programs. Those talks have been stalled for nearly a year.

GOP Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the "issue is serious enough with North Korea, with their having nuclear weapons and the capacity to deliver them, that I think we ought to use every alternative, including direct bilateral talks."

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Sunday ended a weeklong trip to Asia and Russia to rally support for enforcing a U.N. Security Council resolution that impose sanctions on North Korea for the nuclear test.

Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said Japan, Russia, China and South Korea - the other members of the six-nation talks - have urged the United States to allow direct talks with the North.

Lugar and Specter also joined Biden in calling for direct talks with Iran.

Lugar and Biden appeared on Fox News Sunday, while Specter was on CNN's Late Edition.

[Last modified October 23, 2006, 05:34:07]