Political declaration urges North Korea to remain in NPT

[RUTH YOUNGBLOOD]

TOKYO (UPI) -- Leaders of the Group of Seven industrial nations
planned to release Thursday a political declaration calling for a
negotiated settlement to the bloody and protracted conflict in Bosnia-
Herzegovinia and urging North Korea to remain in the Nuclear Non-
Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
The declaration, titled ``Striving For A More Secure and Humane
World,'' will be issued on the second day of the three-day summit of the
leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the
United States.
It expresses determination to see peace achieved in Cambodia,
Somalia, and the Middle East and includes for the first time a statement
that the Arab boycott against Israel should be ended.
Israel is called upon to respect its obligations toward the
Palestinians in the occupied territories.
Addressing the Bosnian conflict, the document says the Serbs and
Croats should not be allowed to dictate the terms of a settlement.
The statement praises the U.N. peacekeeping efforts in Cambodia, and
stresses the need to boost the world body's capability to promote
``preventative diplomacy.''
It also supports the democratic and free market forces in Russia and
President Boris Yeltsin, arriving later Thursday to address his second
consecutive summit.
A key focus of the document is nuclear nonproliferation, with the
Ukraine and Kazakhstan urged to join the NPT and the importance of the
treaty's extension beyond 1995 underscored.
Communist North Korea has become a target of international concern
after declaring March 12 it would pull out of the NPT, rather than allow
international inspections of suspected nuclear development sites.
During high-level talks between North Korea and the United States
June 11, the delegation from Pyongyang agreed to suspend its pullout the
day before it was to go into effect.
While Pyongyang insists the two sites are military facilities
unrelated to its nuclear program, the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) suspects they may store more plutonium than North Korea has
admitted it has extracted from reprocessed nuclear waste.
During discussions, the United States ``stressed nonproliferation,
because, in our view, nonproliferation is really the arms control issue
of the '90s,'' said U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher.
Regarding the need for continued support of the Middle East peace
process, Christopher told reporters, ``For the first time there is a
flat statement that the Arab boycott should end, and that reflects the
concensus of the parties.''
The primary Arab boycott is aimed at Arab trade with the Jewish
state, but there is a secondary boycott against non-Arab companies doing
business with Israel and a tertiary measure pressuring non-Arab
companies to boycott blacklisted companies.
Christopher said there were strong statements from the foreign
ministers concerning Iran, Iraq and Libya, with Iran coming in for
particular U.S. criticism.
The United States ``stressed the fact that Iran was accumulating
weapons of mass destruction, that they were exporting terror, that they
were involved in human rights abuses within the country,'' Christopher
said.
However Japanese officials said the declaration does not cite any
country by name for exporting terrorism.
British officials said the declaration was ``short, punchy and
readable,'' reflecting Prime Minister John Major's proposal last August
to simplify the process at the annual talks.
The long-winded document issued at Munich was supplemented by a
chairman's statement on 11 separate political issues and a special
declaration on the former Yugoslavia.
Christopher said the discussion on Bosnia focused on the importance
of containment of the conflict and on the need for additional
humanitarian relief.
Bosnia's Muslims are reportedly under pressure to agree to a joint
Serb-Croat plan for a three-sided Bosnian confederation and an end to 15
months of civil war, after the failure of an earlier proposal to split
Bosnia into 10 cantons.
Christopher said it was agreed that the Serbs and Croats should not
be able to dictate in Geneva the terms under which agreements are to be
reached.