TOKYO, March 18 -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice raised the ante Friday for North Korea's return to the talks on its nuclear weapons programs, saying the government in Pyongyang must not only send a delegation but be prepared to respond seriously to a U.S. proposal offered last June.
"When we frame this I hope people understand that, yes, we want the North Koreans to come to the six-nation talks but it needs to be in the spirit of trying to move forward in those talks," Rice told reporters traveling with her as she flew from Islamabad to Japan to begin the East Asian leg of her weeklong tour of Asia.
 
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"We were asked and prodded by our allies several months ago to make a step forward in the six-party talks. We did," Rice said, referring to the June proposal. "There's still no answer to the proposal."
North Korea on Feb. 10 announced it possessed nuclear weapons and was withdrawing from the negotiations, citing what it called the administration's "hostile policy." The effort to convince North Korea to rejoin the talks will be a key issue in Rice's talks this weekend with officials in Japan, South Korea and Japan. Russia is also a participant in the talks with North Korea.
The reclusive government's media organs have waged an increasingly tough campaign against Rice, demanding that she apologize for calling the country an "outpost of tyranny" before it would even consider returning to the talks. Rice has shrugged off the demand, saying she was telling the truth about conditions within North Korea. "I am not going to get into a debate on semantics with the North Koreans," she said.
Under the administration's June proposal -- made under pressure from China, South Korea and Japan -- if North Korea agrees to terminate its nuclear programs, South Korea and other U.S. allies could provide immediate energy assistance to North Korea.
Pyongyang would have three months to disclose its programs -- including a clandestine uranium enrichment program suspected by the United States -- and have its claims verified by U.S. intelligence.
The United States eventually would join its allies in giving written security assurances and participate in a process that night ultimately result in direct U.S. aid.
Though North Korea has not responded, both China and South Korea have urged the administration to sweeten the offer, for example, by agreeing to provide administrative expenses for the fuel-oil deliveries.
Rice said that before U.S. intelligence concluded in July 2002 that North Korea had the uranium program, the administration was prepared to present a "bold approach" for better relations with North Korea.
However, U.S. officials have privately said that the "bold approach" consisted of two pages of ideas by lower-level officials, and had never been formally adopted by senior Bush administration policymakers.
Many key Bush officials, in fact, were eager to terminate an agreement reached by the Clinton administration in 1994 to provide North Korea with fuel oil and build light-water nuclear reactors.
After the Bush administration confronted North Korea over the secret program in October 2002, North Korea pulled out of the agreement and the U.S. and its allies suspended the fuel oil deliveries and the reactor construction.
