North Korea to rejoin 6-nation nuclear talks

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Alexeyev said that Moscow views North Korea’s decision as “extremely positive,” ITAR-Tass and Interfax news agencies reported.

But Japan, which feels threatened by North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, took a more skeptical line.

While Tokyo welcomed the prospect of a new round of talks, it “does not intend to accept North Korea’s return to the talks on the premise that it possess nuclear weapons,” public broadcaster NHK quoted Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso as saying.

Aso added that a resumption of talks “is conditional on North Korea not possessing nuclear weapons.”

Calls to the North Korean Embassy in Beijing seeking comment went unanswered.

China’s Foreign Ministry released a brief statement, the first word of the breakthrough, saying that an agreement was struck on North Korea’s rejoining the talks, but issued no other comment.

Tempered expectations
Hill cautioned that much work needed to be done to prepare for the resumption of talks. “We’re a long way from our goals here,” he said. “I have not broken out the champagne and cigars yet.”

Key in the coming days, Hill said, would be intense preparations by all parties to make sure a new round would deal substantively with an agreement reached at the last session of six-party talks in September 2005.

Among the issues would be how would North Korea takes steps to ultimately give up its nuclear programs, he said. Other issues, such as a South Korean proposal to provide electricity to the impoverished North and how to set up mechanism, perhaps a working group, to discuss the U.S. financial sanctions, also were likely be explored, he said.

Pyongyang had said it wouldn’t return to the negotiations until the United States desisted from a campaign to sever it from the international financial system. The United States refused and said the issue was unrelated.

To try and press its case, the North launched a series of missile in July — including a long-range model believed capable of reaching parts of the United States. Tensions rose when it staged the atomic test on Oct. 9.

Hill described intense backstage Chinese efforts to get the six-party talks on track, saying Beijing contacted Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice late last week to ask if she would dispatch him to Beijing for a three-way discussion with North Korea.

Hill, who had been in the South Pacific at a forum of regional governments, cut short a visit to Australia, arriving in Beijing late Monday for Tuesday’s talks.

A U.N. committee has been determining how to implement the sanctions over the atomic test, measures banning the North’s weapons trade.

U.S. seeking to apply pressure
Washington has been seeking to gather support for the sanctions, and getting the North’s top two trading partners — China and South Korea — to pressure the regime.

North Korea is believed to have enough radioactive material to make about a half-dozen bombs, but estimates vary due to limited intelligence about its nuclear program.

The apparent North Korean agreement followed a day of typically bellicose rhetoric from Pyongyang.

North Korea also warned South Korea on Tuesday against participating in a U.S.-led international drive to stop and search ships carrying weapons of mass destruction, saying involvement would bring about unspecified “catastrophic consequences.”

The warning released by Pyongyang’s official news agency came as South Korea is considering whether to fully participate in the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative aimed at interdicting shipments of weapons of mass destruction and other suspected cargo.

Seoul has been reluctant to take full part in the initiative out of concern it may anger North Korea and complicate efforts to resolve the international standoff.

Instead, it has sent observers to drills and attended briefings.

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