North Korea in bid to break nuclear deadlock with US

Published on Sunday 24 July 2011 15:42

A SENIOR North Korean minister will visit the United States this week to discuss the possible resumption of long-stalled international negotiations on ending Pyongyang's nuclear programmes.

The news that diplomats could be close to reviving six-nation disarmament talks that broke off in 2008 comes after more than a year of animosity and high tension between the rival Koreas and is welcome news for a region on edge. Two attacks Seoul blames on Pyongyang last year killed 50 South Koreans and led to threats of war.

North Korean vice-foreign minister Kim Kye Gwan will travel to New York at US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's invitation, though the exact days are unclear. The announcement follows an earlier meeting between Mrs Clinton and the foreign ministers of South Korea and Japan on the sidelines of a regional forum of the Association of South-east Asian Nations, in Bali, Indonesia, where officials from 27 countries discussed security.

Mr Kim will meet a team of American officials to explore his country's commitment to returning to the international talks and taking concrete steps toward disarmament,.

The nuclear negotiations involve the two Koreas, the US, China, Japan and Russia.

"We are open to talks with North Korea, but we do not intend to reward the North just for returning to the table," Mrs Clinton said.

"We will not give them anything new for actions they have already agreed to take. And we have no appetite for pursuing protracted negotiations that will only lead us right back to where we have already been."

On Friday, nuclear negotiators from North and South Korea met for the first time since the disarmament talks collapsed in 2008. The North walked out of those talks in protest at international criticism of a prohibited long-range rocket launch.

North Korean foreign minister Pak Ui Chun said that the Korean peninsula now stood "on the crossroads of detente and the vicious cycle of escalating tension".

The countries involved must "make the best use of (the] opportunity of dialogue and make a bold decision to settle the fundamental issue".

Since the last round of talks, North Korea has conducted a second nuclear test. and revealed a uranium enrichment facility that could give it another way to make atomic bombs.