North Korea's bespectacled ruler is famously reclusive. He turns his back on visiting dignitaries. His own citizens almost never hear the sound of his voice and he leaves it to official media to deliver harangues against the US.
That made it all the more surprising when Kim Jong-il, in an unexpected meeting Friday with a visiting South Korean envoy, suggested his nation could rejoin nuclear talks and added: "I've been thinking favorably of the United States."
Kim also indicated his country might eventually renounce nuclear weapons in a session with South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young -- his first contact with a top Seoul official since April 2002, and one he clearly held in part to pass a message to Washington.
The US dismissed the overture, saying Kim needed to set a date and make a more concrete commitment to nuclear negotiations.
Kim, in rare flattering comments, said he "has no reason to think badly" of US President George W. Bush and even asked Chung if Bush should be addressed by a Korean honorific that roughly translates as "his excellency."
He said Russian President Vladimir Putin had told him Bush was a "good man to talk to."
"I would find him interesting to talk to," Kim said of Bush. "I've been thinking favorably of the United States since the Clinton administration."
Bush recently referred to Kim using the honorific "Mr." -- a softened tone after earlier comments labeling the North Korean leader a "tyrant" and lumping his country in an "axis of evil" that included Iran and Saddam-era Iraq.
In the past, the North has called Bush a "political imbecile."
"If it is certain that the United States is respecting the North as a partner, North Korea could come to the six-party talks as early as July," Kim said, according to Chung.
Kim added the North's return would need to be "further negotiated" with Washington, Chung said.
The North Korean ruler also said he would welcome international nuclear inspections and rejoin the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty if the nuclear standoff was resolved.
Kim said on Friday that "if the regime's security is guaranteed, there is no reason to possess a single nuclear weapon," according to Chung.
US officials have repeatedly asserted they have no intention of invading the North, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said Washington recognizes North Korea as a sovereign nation.
During the Friday talks, Kim and Chung also agreed to an August resumption of family reunions of Koreans separated by the heavily fortified border. That had been stalled for nearly a year after North-South relations soured followed mass defections.
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