BEIJING, July 9 -- Ending a yearlong boycott, North Korea has agreed to return later this month to six-nation talks on the elimination of its nuclear arsenal, U.S. officials and the North Korean government said Saturday.
The agreement to restart the talks was reached at a rare dinner here between a senior U.S. envoy and his North Korean counterpart, held shortly before the scheduled arrival Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Saturday night for talks with Chinese officials on the North Korean issue.
During the meal, North Korean deputy foreign minister Kim Gye Gwan told Assistant Secretary of State Christopher R. Hill that North Korea was willing to attend talks in Beijing the week of July 25, according to a senior U.S. official traveling with Rice. In what U.S. officials took as an encouraging sign, they reported that Kim said the purpose of the talks was the "denuclearization of the Korean peninsula" and that North Korean intended to make progress at the negotiations.
Rice was to meet with Chinese president Hu Jintao, Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing and other Chinese officials Sunday morning. She then was to fly to Phuket, Thailand for a scheduled tour on Monday of damage from last winter's Indian Ocean tsunami. After the Thailand detour, she will return to East Asia for talks with Japanese and South Korea officials, also largely focusing on the North Korean issue.
China has already announced that State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan -- a former foreign minister who also will meet one-on-one with Rice -- will visit Pyongyang Tuesday to Thursday as Hu's personal envoy, apparently to report on the discussions with Rice.
The diplomatic breakthrough comes five months after North Korea declared it had nuclear weapons and would never return to talks because of the Bush administration's "hostile policy." The statement was made shortly after Rice, in her confirmation hearings, declared North Korea was one of six "outposts of tyranny" -- and Bush a few days later in his State of the Union address pledged to combat tyranny around the world.
The United States' partners in the talks, particularly China, have complained that the administration's rhetoric concerning North Korea and its leader Kim Jong Il was making it difficult to lure the reclusive nation back to the talks. In recent months, U.S. officials have sent various signals that they respected North Korea's sovereignty, though Rice has declined to retract her "outpost of tyranny" comment. President Bush, who earned the ire of North Korea by referring to Kim as a "dictator," began using the honorific "Mr" when referring to him.
North Korea's official KCNA news agency, in a statement late Saturday night confirming the talks, appeared to claim a victory in the change of tone when it described the dinner between Hill and Kim.
"The U.S. side clarified its official stand to recognize the DPRK as a sovereign state, not to invade it and hold bilateral talks within the framework of the six-party talks," the statement said, using the initials for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. "The DPRK side interpreted the U.S. side's expression of its stand as a retraction of its remark designating the former as an outpost of tyranny and decided to return to the six-party talks."
U.S. officials stressed that Hill and Kim did not negotiate and merely exchanged diplomatic messages. They said Hill's statement similar to comments made at two recent meetings between mid-level officials at North Korea's U.N. Mission, which helped set the groundwork for North Korea's agreement. Still, it was the highest level contact between the two countries in more than a year.
The Bush administration has insisted it will not hold bilateral negotiations with North Korea, except as part of the six-nation negotiating rounds that also include China, Russia, Japan and South Korea.
Only three sessions have been held in the past two years, with the last in June 2004, and little progress has been made at any of the meetings. In the meantime, U.S. intelligence analysts believe North Korea's stockpile of weapons-grade plutonium has increased fourfold in the same period, enough to make about nine weapons.
The United States also pressed China and South Korea to send tough signals to North Korea about the implications of its continued refusal to return to the negotiating table. Those countries instead appear to have lured North Korea back by suggesting that a successful negotiation will result in significant assistance. China, in fact, rebuffed a U.S. suggestion in April that it temporarily suspend an oil pipeline to North Korea.
Last month, South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young, in a rare face-to-face meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il on June 17, told him that South Korea was willing to help finance a massive energy assistance package, but only if North Korea gave up its nuclear programs. According to a U.S. official, he also told Kim that North Korea would not be able to retain a peaceful nuclear program, which had been one of Pyongyang's top negotiating demands.
Rice, speaking to reporters traveling with her before she arrived in Beijing, said the United States had no plans to update its proposal, advanced at the talks a year ago, but was prepared to negotiate if North Korea came forward with a serious counteroffer.
Under the U.S. proposal, if North Korea agreed to end its plutonium and uranium 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 and have its claims verified by U.S. intelligence. Only then would the United States and its allies give provisional security assurances and enter a process that might result in direct U.S. aid and a permanent security guarantee.
"There is something there for the North Koreans to react to if they choose to," Rice said. "It is not as if we are starting from a blank slate and everybody has to make it up."
At past sessions, North Korea has made a series of proposals, none of which have been acceptable to the United States. North Korea denies it has a uranium-enrichment program and has proposed only a long-term freeze of its plutonium program. It has also called for a long list of concessions, including billions of dollars in aid.
