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Korea crisis envoys seek way forward

South Korean students lie down in a street in front of the ruling Uri Party's offices in Gwangju, south of Seoul, yesterday during a rally opposing the government's decision to send troops to Iraq. PHOTO: AP

North and South Korea, the US, Japan, Russia and China began working-level talks yesterday to lay the foundation for a third round of the complex discussions on the North Korean nuclear crisis.

Officials from several parties involved have cautioned that scant progress can be expected at the third round of senior-level talks to be held in Beijing from Wednesday to Saturday to try to end a 20-month standoff between Washington and Pyongyang over North Korea's nuclear ambitions.

Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing (李肇星) appeared upbeat.

Asked if he expected more progress than at the previous two rounds, Li said: "Yes."

"I hope we will make progress. We hope the peninsula will be nuclear free and enjoy peace and stability," Li told reporters on the sidelines of an Asian diplomatic forum in the eastern Chinese port of Qingdao.

The talks should be held in a "pragmatic, relaxed atmosphere," he said.

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

North Korea denies it had a uranium enrichment program, but early last year it threw out UN nuclear inspectors, withdrew from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and restarted a mothballed nuclear reactor from which weapons-grade plutonium can be extracted.

"Various parties' political willingness, diplomatic wisdom, patience in negotiations and ability to compromise will go through a rigorous test," the People's Daily, the mouthpiece of China's Communist Party, said in a commentary at the start of the two days of working talks.

"Historical grievances that have piled up, conflict of practical interests, different security strategies in addition to the US elections have decided that a fundamental resolution to the Korean peninsula nuclear issue will be a long and difficult process, and reversals may even appear," the newspaper said.

China has said expectations should not be too high from these talks, and many analysts have said North Korea may be waiting for the outcome of the US presidential elections in November before deciding whether to take part in serious bargaining.

China, one of the few friends of isolated communist North Korea, has said that what it called Pyong-yang's reasonable demands should be given emphasis and resolved.

The US side is demanding the complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantling of North Korea's nuclear programs.

North Korea said yesterday the US was chiefly to blame for the standoff.

"It is the US which reneged on its international obligation and wantonly violated the NPT," the North's KCNA news agency said, quoting the Rodong Sinmun newspaper.

"For a fair solution to the nuclear issue between the DPRK and the US the countries concerned should demand the US drop at once its hostile policy toward the DPRK," it said.

DPRK, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, is the official name for North Korea.

Japanese media said on Saturday that Tokyo would offer energy assistance to North Korea, in need of aid for its struggling economy, at the talks but only if the communist state freezes its nuclear programs.
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