US’s Zoellick warns China against deals with Myanmar, Iran, Sudan

Sept 8, 2005 (WASHIGTON) — United States has warned China that deals with Myanmar, Iran and Sudan may backfire from a broader foreign policy perspective, Deputy Secretary of State Robert B. Zoellick said.

He told reporters here Tuesday that his warning to Chinese officials was made during his talks with them last month in Beijing, Kazinform.

“What advantage do you really gain over them if you are associated with genocide and guys who are running their countries into the ground?” Zoellick asked them.

Refering to North Korea which he termed as a “criminal state”, he said it was clear during his talks that the Chinese do not want a “collapsed state” on the border.

In his talks, he said, he picked up a discussion on the Korean Peninsula’s future that Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice had initiated during an earlier trip to Beijing.

“Part of what I was trying to explain to them,” said Zoellick, that “we would have to take defensive countermeasures of various types not only against North
Korea’s nuclear activities but counterfeiting and other
criminal activities.”

The effort by Rice and himself, he said, was aimed at reducing the anxiety of the Chinese over a possible reunification of North and South Korea.

Zoellick also said that the US is interested in using the six-nation talks involving the two Koreas, Russia, China and Japan as a springboard for creating a multilateral security framework for northern Asia that would mirror organizations in the southeastern part of the continent.

(PTI/ST)