North Koreans need to commit to discussing 'dismantling' nuclear program

WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday it isn't enough for North Korea to return to six-nation disarmament talks but that it should commit to discuss dismantling its nuclear program.

"The ball is in the North Koreans' court," Rice said as she prepared to embark on a weeklong trip to the Middle East and Europe.

Talks between North and South Korea, the United States, China, Russia and Japan have been on hold for a year because Pyongyang has boycotted them, saying Washington's policy toward the communist state is hostile.

"There is a lot of bubbling, as you know, about whether the North Koreans are ready to return to the table or are not. And we will see," Rice said.

North Korean diplomats earlier this month suggested they were willing to return to the six-nation talks -- but did not offer a date.

"Until we have a date, we don't have a date," Rice said.

She said the United States and the other four nations in the talks "remain consistently committed to a non-nuclear Korean peninsula."

Turning to Iraq, Rice responded to growing criticism of the war and reconstruction effort as reflected in U.S. public opinion polls.

"Now, I do think that we owe to the American people to say again and again that this is not going to be an American enterprise for the long term. This is going to be an Iraqi enterprise," she said.

"This is hard. And I think that everybody knows that the American people have been asked to support a complex and difficult task in trying to help the Iraqis in overthrowing a dictator, then to create a viable and united and democratically based state."

Rice called on Americans to "reach down" into themselves and "look for the kind of patience and generosity that we have exhibited in the past."

On still another topic, Rice urged the Senate to vote on the stalled nomination of John Bolton to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. "It's time to get an up-and-down vote on John Bolton," she said.

She said changes were under way "without the United States having a permanent representative at the United Nations." Bolton is needed to "shepherd this very important process," she said.

Rice's Mideast trip is to include visits to Saudi Arabia and Egypt, two countries that President Bush singled out as nations that could "show the way toward democracy in the Middle East."

Her decision to call off a stop in Egypt earlier this year was widely seen as a protest to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's government's crackdown on an opposition leader.

However, Mubarak has subsequently opened the way for multiparty elections. In the past, Egypt has had the equivalent of one-party rule.

While endorsing Bush's call for more democracy in the Middle East, Rice signaled that the administration was unhappy with developments in Iran, where voters were choosing a president on Friday.

"The sad thing about Iran is it's moving backward, not forward," she said. "I think everyone would say that the Iranian system, political system was more open a few years ago than it is now."

Her words echoed a strong statement earlier by Bush, who said Iran's electoral process "ignores the basic requirements of democracy."

Rice, who leaves Friday, also will visit Ramallah and Jerusalem to try to help Israelis and Palestinians prepare for Israel's Gaza Strip withdrawal. She then goes to Brussels, Belgium, for an international conference on Iraq and then to London for a meeting of foreign ministers of eight leading industrial democracies.

It will be her third trip to the Middle East and her fourth to Europe since taking over the job from Colin Powell early this year.

She acknowledged concerns among Arabs and Europeans about the longtime detention of terror suspects at the U.S. Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba. She said Bush "has an obligation first and foremost to protect the American people."

Many suspects have been released, and several have turned up again opposing the United States on the battlefield, Rice said.