North Korean leader Kim Jong Il told a visiting Chinese envoy that his government will return to six-party nuclear disarmament talks if the US shows sincerity and if certain conditions are met, the North's official news agency reported yesterday.
The Korean Central News Agency did not elaborate on the conditions, but the report could indicate that North Korea would be ready to strike a deal with the US on returning to the talks but that it might need further diplomatic coaxing to do that.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Lou Fintor said that the US is ready to resume the talks "without preconditions." Washington previously has opposed granting the North any concessions merely for returning to the table.
Japan said that North Korea's return to the talks would be "welcome," while China said more effort was needed by all parties before the negotiations could restart.
Efforts to get North Korea back into the talks have taken on new urgency since Pyongyang flouted Washington and its allies on Feb. 10 with its unconfirmed declaration that it had built nuclear weapons, and its announcement that it would boycott further six-party talks.
Kim's latest comments on the escalating standoff came during a meeting with a high-level envoy from China, his impoverished country's only remaining major ally.
Wang Jiarui, head of the Chinese Communist Party's International Department, traveled to Pyongyang to urge the North to return to the talks, which involve the two Koreas, the US, China, Japan and Russia.
"We will go to the negotiating table anytime if there are mature conditions for the six-party talks," Kim told the envoy, expressing hope that the US would show "trustworthy sincerity" and take unspecified action, KCNA said.
Kim said North Korea "would as ever stand for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and its position to seek a peaceful solution to the issue through dialogue remains unchanged," the news agency said.
North Korea previously has said it would return to the talks only if the US drops its "hostile" policy toward the North. It has condemned US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's description of North Korea as an "outpost of tyranny," calling the remark evidence that Washington seeks a regime change in Pyongyang.
North Korea seeks to trade its nuclear weapons programs for massive economic aid, diplomatic recognition and a nonaggression treaty with Washington -- measures that it hopes will guarantee the survival of Kim's Stalinist regime.
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