North Korea signalled yesterday that it was ready for talks on its suspected atomic program after confusion over whether it tried to scupper negotiations by saying it was reprocessing fuel rods to make nuclear bombs.
The US said an English-language statement on Friday from the North Korean Foreign Ministry might have been mistranslated to say Pyongyang was reprocessing the 8,000 nuclear rods rather than on the verge of reprocessing them.
Reprocessing would be the most provocative step North Korea has taken since the dispute flared in October, when Washington said Pyongyang admitted to a covert nuclear program.
"As far as I know, there is no change in the plans for the talks to take place in Beijing next week," said Lee Ji-hyun, South Korean presidential spokeswoman for foreign media.
South Korea is not included in the planned three-way talks in Beijing between the US, China and the North but has a major stake in the outcome on the divided peninsula.
North Korea's KCNA news agency said Jo Myong-rok, first vice chairman of the National Defense Commission headed by leader Kim Jong-il, would visit Beijing from April 21 to 23.
Its one-sentence report did not say whether Jo, the military number two to Kim, would prepare for the three-way talks or explain the reprocessing. But the South's Yonhap news agency quoted Chinese sources as saying his trip was seen aimed at fine-tuning its talks stance with China.
Jo visited Washington in October 2000, the most senior Pyongyang official to do so.
In Washington, a Bush administration official said the US might cancel the talks, but South Korean media quoted others as saying they were likely to go ahead.
Yonhap said Japan and South Korea had urged US officials to go ahead with the talks, expected to start on April 23.
In a further sign Pyongyang wants to engage the outside world, albeit for different reasons, Seoul said the North had proposed holding bilateral ministerial talks on April 27 to 29.
Pyongyang cancelled previously scheduled cabinet-level talks with Seoul on economic and other matters after the South decided to send non-combat troops to help in the US-led war in Iraq.
"The North sent us this morning a telegram, saying it wants ministerial talks in Pyongyang," the South Korean Unification Ministry said. KCNA said it proposed the talks to "settle the issue of inter-Korean relations through national cooperation".
A ministry spokesman said the South would "positively consider accepting". An official reply was likely next week.
The North asked Seoul this week for rice and fertilizer.
US satellites can detect activity at the nuclear complex where the reprocessing plant is located, but it is not clear whether they can discern reprocessing and, if so, how quickly.
The South Korean Defense Ministry said a review of South Korean and US intelligence had found no sign the North Koreans had begun reprocessing.
Japan, like South Korea, said it had no information to back up the North's original statement, which could fit into a past Pyongyang pattern of raising the stakes ahead of major talks.
In Seoul, more than 1,000 activists and army veterans burned an effigy of the late North Korean leader Kim Il-sung in a protest against the North's suspected nuclear arms program.
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