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N Korea softens stance ahead of talks

Chinese paramilitary guards and a plainclothes policeman guard the North Korean Embassy in Beijing yesterday, a day before six-party talks on the nuclear crisis were to start. PHOTO: AFP

North Korea sounded an upbeat note yesterday on the eve of six-party talks aimed at resolving the crisis over its weapons programs but stuck firmly to its demand for compensation before any possible nuclear freeze.

Analysts have held out scant hope of a breakthrough at the talks starting today, citing Pyongyang's denials it is enriching uranium as well as lack of trust between the two protagonists -- the US and North Korea -- in ending a dispute that has stoked regional tensions since late 2002.

"The circumstances of the talks are better than the previous one, and we hope that we can cooperate closely with China and Russia," Deputy Foreign Minister Kim Gye-gwan was quoted by China's Xinhua news agency as saying as he left Pyongyang.

"We appreciate the efforts done by the Chinese side. We will do our best to make [a] good result at the talks," Kim was quoted as telling the Chinese ambassador.

But Kim made clear Pyongyang expected something in return for any concessions, and the Foreign Ministry issued a typically tough statement of the kind Pyongyang has long used to try to strengthen its position when it sees it may have to compromise.

"Only as long as the issue of compensation is completely resolved will the North Korean freeze plan be realized," Xinhua quoted the North Korean Foreign Ministry as saying.

"If this round of talks proposes a `freeze first, compensate later,' North Korea will resolutely oppose it."

The talks follow six months of shuttle diplomacy after a first round in Beijing last August failed to narrow the gulf over Pyongyang's atomic arms ambitions.

In a sign Pyongyang may be ready to soften its stance, North Korean diplomats held informal talks this month in Vienna with officials from the UN nuclear watchdog on a possible resumption of inspections of the country's nuclear complex at Yongbyon, Japan's Kyodo news agency reported yesterday.

Kyodo said it was the first substantial contact between North Korea and the International Atomic Energy Agency since inspectors were kicked out of the reclusive communist country in December 2002.

Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi offered another ray of optimism, telling a parliamentary panel yesterday that Pyongyang had told China that the offer to freeze its weapons program included the suspected uranium program.

US officials and arms control experts say it would be meaningless to exclude the uranium program from efforts to disarm North Korea because, unlike the reactor-centered production of plutonium, uranium enrichment can be hidden.

Washington, Tokyo and Seoul have made clear to Pyongyang that the talks must cover both schemes.

North Korea denies it has a program for enriching uranium to make bomb fuel.

It dismissed Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan's recent confession that he had sold uranium-linked nuclear secrets to North Korea and other states as a "whopping lie" spun by the US.

The US, which says the North may already have one or two atomic bombs, says Pyongyang officials acknowledged having such a program in 2002 when confronted with US evidence and only later denied it in the face of international criticism.

It wants the North to commit to the "complete, irreversible and verifiable" scrapping of its atomic programs.

"Our position has not changed," a White House spokesman said. "We look forward to the six-party talks, and we want a North Korean Peninsula that renounces its nuclear weapons program in a verifiable and irreversible way."

North Korea, branded by Washington as part of an "axis of evil" with Iran and pre-war Iraq, recently offered to freeze its nuclear activities in return for diplomatic concessions and aid as a first step towards a resolution of the dispute.

On Monday, South Korea put forward a united front with the US and Japan, saying the three countries aimed to persuade the North to accept a joint statement pledging to dismantle its nuclear programs, set up a working group to regularize talks and agree to a date for a third round.

China and Russia also said they had reached a separate consensus on tackling the crisis.
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