Obama rejects notion of breakthrough with N. Korea
Source: AP-EXCITE
By JULIE PACE
BEIJING (AP) — President Barack Obama is squelching speculation that the release of two Americans held in North Korea might pave the way for a new round of nuclear talks, saying the U.S. needs more than "small gestures" before reopening a high level of dialogue with Pyongyang.
Shortly after Obama arrived in China, North Korea's neighbor and chief benefactor, the president made his first extensive public comments Monday on the hand-over of Americans Kenneth Bae and Matthew Miller. The timing of the Americans' release raised questions about what message North Korea's young leader, Kim Jong Un, might be trying to send the U.S. president while he is in the region.
While Obama welcomed Bae's and Miller's reunion with their families, he insisted that his administration had offered nothing in return to North Korea, one of the world's most isolated and impoverished countries.
"There were not high-level policy discussions," Obama said during a meeting with Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott. When asked whether the negotiations to secure Bae and Miller's release gave him new insight into North Korea's mysterious president and his strategy for dealing with the U.S., Obama said curtly, "No."
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FILE - In this Saturday, Nov. 8, 2014, file photo, Matthew Miller, left, who had been held in North Korea since April 2014, is greeted after arriving at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash., after he and fellow American Kenneth Bae were freed during a top-secret mission. U.S. President Barack Obama, who insists the U.S. offered nothing in return to North Korea, made his first extensive public comments, on Monday, Nov. 10, 2014, on the handover of Miller and Bae. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)
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