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Today's paper. Last Updated: 06/01/2012

In Naples, New 'G-8' Targets North Korea, Bosnia, Haiti

APLES, Italy -- The big powers ended their Naples summit with a new demand that North Korea submit to nuclear inspection and with a warning of the danger of a wider Balkan war.


Opening a chapter in summit diplomacy, the Group of Seven nations were joined by Russia on Sunday as a full partner in their annual political talks for the first time.


The new "G-8," as President Bill Clinton called it, sounded stern, and seemed of one mind, in a communiqu? on an array of flashpoints across an uneasy post-Cold War world.


Even as North Korea mourned the death of Kim Il Sung, its Stalinist ruler of 46 years, that country was again told to admit inspectors to nuclear sites -- the issue that has raised the specter of a new Korean conflict.


The summit called North Koreans to allay "once and for all" suspicion they might be making nuclear arms.


On the Balkans, the summit saw "a grave risk of renewal of war on a larger scale" if the Bosnian warring factions reject a new peace plan.


The leaders of the United States, Russia, Japan, Germany, France, Canada, Britain and Italy vowed harsh sanctions if a July 19 deadline for acceptance is not met.


The plan would split Bosnia roughly in half between Serbs and a Moslem-Croat federation.


The French and British foreign ministers will fly to Bosnia on Tuesday to press acceptance on the Serbs who are required to vacate conquered territory.


President Boris Yeltsin, who is closest to the Serbs, said that Russia was backing the peace bid "with as much character as we have in our bodies."


The leaders called for more pressure on Haiti's army rulers to restore democracy, though it stopped short of a threat of military intervention there. And the Naples summit was noteworthy in that it firmly identified Ukraine as a source of potential instability.


Aid worth up to $4 billion was promised for the nation of 52 million people -- plus $200 million now to shut its Chernobyl nuclear reactor.


Away from the summit table, Yeltsin met Clinton in a bilateral session that Clinton said made progress on a withdrawal of Russian troops from the Baltic states by the end of August.


Apparent G-8 consensus on a range of political issues was in contrast with Saturday's separate G-7 summit on economic affairs, held without Yeltsin or Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama, felled by a stomach bug before the talks began.


Its failure to come up with a package to rescue the dollar from around 50-year lows against Japan's yen was likely to mean a volatile Monday reopening of currency markets.


Leaders in Naples hailed an inflation-free global economic recovery.


But, said Tokai Bank economist David Brown in London, "if you scrape away at the superficial veneer, what you are looking at is a divided G-7."




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