N. Korea, Iran open to U.S. efforts

North Korea and Iran, two nations with nuclear aspirations the U.S. wants to thwart, both signaled Wednesday that they were open to new initiatives from President Barack Obama that could defuse tensions.

A newspaper considered a mouthpiece for the North Korean government said the communist regime is willing to give up its nuclear weapons if the U.S. agrees to conditions imposed by the North, including establishing formal diplomatic relations.
Iran said it was “ready for new approaches” from Obama after his predecessor George W. Bush shunned the country.

The Japanese-based newspaper Choson Sinbo said in a story posted on its Web site hours before the inauguration that the North was waiting to see what position the new president would take on the nuclear standoff. The North holds a stash of weapons-grade plutonium that experts say could fuel as many as 10 nuclear bombs, and it has already tested a nuclear device.

The Choson Sinbo report said the North put forward conditions for its nuclear abandonment “ahead of the launch of the Obama administration,” and it was now up to Washington to act.

“It is too early to predict whether the Obama administration will endorse the North’s nuclear possession or try to realize denuclearization through normalization of relations,” the newspaper report said. “But what is sure is that the North side is ready to deal with any choice by the enemy nation.”

Iran’s foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, urged Obama to change American policies in the Middle East.

“We are ready for new approaches by the United States,” Mottaki told the English-language Press TV, part of Iran’s state media.