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N Korea to join six-way nuke meet

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il agreed Pyongyang that would join a first round of six-party working level talks on his nuclear programs on May 12 after a visit to China this month, media and officials said yesterday.

The lower-level talks to focus on details rather than strategy would be the first concrete result of two rounds of high-level talks involving China, Russia, the two Koreas, the US and Japan in Beijing in the last year on North Korea's nuclear weapons ambitions.

The breakthrough came when reclusive North Korean leader Kim made a rare visit to Beijing this month and met Chinese President Hu Jintao to set the May 12 date, Japan's Kyodo news agency said.

Kim's trip came just days after a visit to Beijing by US Vice President Dick Cheney, who brought more evidence of North Korea's efforts to develop a nuclear force.

"There is no period set, there are no specific topics fixed," South Korean Vice Foreign Minister Lee Soo-hyuck said.

He suggested only one working group meeting in Beijing was likely before the next round of six-way talks and that this seemed to be North Korea's doing.

"As far as I know if North Korea wanted to have talks just once then there will be talks only once," he said.

The talks were expected to last about five days, Kyodo said.

The nuclear crisis erupted in October 2002 when US officials say communist North Korea disclosed it was working on a secret program to enrich uranium for weapons, in violation of an international agreement.

"The talks will likely discuss mainly the CVID [complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantling] issue," Lee said.

The US has offered to provide security assurances to Pyongyang if it agrees to the complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantling of its nuclear arms programs.

One analyst said North Korea may soon cease its denials of a program to enrich uranium to weapons-grade, enabling progress.

"I believe North Korea will admit it has a uranium enrichment program during the upcoming working-level talks or a third round of the six-party talks," said Hajime Izumi, Korea expert at Shizuoka Prefectural University near Tokyo.

A failure to do so could jeopardize further high-level talks.

"North Korea is considering whether it can gain more by making concessions just before the US presidential election," he said.

Washington recently notified China that it had accepted a May 12 date for the inaugural working group meeting, Kyodo said.

The six parties have held two rounds of senior-level talks on the North's nuclear programs, the first in August last year and the latest in February this year.

The talks made little progress on how North Korea's nuclear programs might be dismantled and its energy and security concerns addressed.

In the February talks in Beijing, the six agreed to meet again before mid-year and to start working-level talks before that to discuss the dispute. No progress had been reported since.

US officials said on Wednesday that Washington was working on a new intelligence estimate that is expected to find North Korea's nuclear weapons program is more threatening than previously thought.

The reports appeared to be based on the assumption that all 9,000 used fuel rods at Pyongyang's plutonium plant had been reprocessed. Lee said: "But it has never been confirmed that the reprocessing has been completed."
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