The US entered a third round of six-nation talks on North Korea's nuclear drive yesterday armed with a new proposal to break the deadlock, as Pyongyang signalled a willingness to listen.
Four days of talks got underway at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse with the top US negotiator announcing the first significant overture to North Korea since US President George W. Bush took office three years ago.
"We're prepared for serious discussions, and we have a proposal to offer," said James Kelly in his opening remarks to the talks that also involve China, Japan, South Korea and Russia.
"Our common goal is a Korean peninsula that is permanently free of nuclear weapons."
North Korea's chief delegate Kim Kye-gwan said he was waiting to hear what the new ideas were and repeated that Pyongyang was prepared to abandon its nuclear weapons, but only if Washington dropped its "hostile policy."
"My delegation is expecting to hear new ideas from the US side," he said.
"If the United States drops its hostile policy in action, we are ready to give up our all nuclear weapons-related programs in a transparent way."
Kelly did not go into details about the proposal but the New York Times yesterday said that Bush had authorized him to offer North Korea a new but highly conditional set of incentives to give up its nuclear weapons programs.
Under the plan, aid would flow immediately after a commitment by North Korea to dismantle its plutonium and uranium weapons programs, it said, citing senior administration officials.
In return, China, Japan Russia and South Korea would begin sending tens of thousands of tonnes of heavy fuel oil every month. Washington would also offer a "provisional" guarantee not to invade the country, the report said.
The US would also begin direct talks about lifting an array of American economic sanctions.
Pyongyang would have three months as a "preparatory period of dismantlement" to seal and shut down its nuclear facilities.
After that, progress would depend on North Korea allowing international inspectors into the country and meeting a series of deadlines for disclosing the full nature of its facilities, dismantling them, and shipping them out of the country, the report said.
North Korean negotiator Kim insisted he was in Beijing to "break this current stalemate," but returned to the Stalinist state's rhetoric that the impasse was down to the US.
"Under the premise that the United States withdraws from its CVID and accepts our demand for compensation ... our delegation is ready to offer a concrete plan for freezing nuclear programs during this round of talks," he said.
CVID refers to the US demand for the complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement of North Korea's nuclear weapons programs, both plutonium-based and uranium.
North Korea has already offered to freeze its plutonium facilities in return for simultaneous rewards but has so far denied that is has a uranium-enrichment facility, which has led to the breakdown of two previous rounds of talks.
"We want neither to possess nuclear weapons permanently nor to attack the United States with them," said Kim. "We just want to protect ourselves from US nuclear attacks."
Analysts say China, Japan and South Korea have become restless with the stalemate.
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