US: No damage in NKorea chairing disarmament body

WASHINGTON — The U.S. has no plans to make a big deal of North Korea becoming the new head of a global disarmament body.

North Korea's four-week tenure as head of the 65-nation Conference on Disarmament begins this month. It's a rotating appointment and State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland called the news "inconsequential." She said Monday that the U.S. doesn't see any damage that North Korea can cause by its role in the consensus-based organization.

Canadian press reports say Canada plans to boycott the conference during North Korea's tenure.

Nuland said the U.S. is concentrating its disarmament efforts through the P5-plus-one, or the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany.

The conference has been stalemated since it wrote the nuclear test ban treaty in 1996.