North Korea ready to rejoin nuclear weapons talks – Kim

NORTH Korea's reclusive leader expressed a willingness to rejoin nuclear disarmament talks while on a not-so-secret trip to China, but gave no firm date for restarting the process that Pyongyang abandoned more than a year ago.

Kim Jong-il's private, armoured train – the eccentric leader shuns air travel – crossed the border back into North Korea yesterday after leaving Beijing following talks with Chinese leaders that touched on earlier discussions aimed at ridding the North of nuclear weapons.

"Kim said the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea] will work with China to create favourable conditions for restarting the six-party talks," the official Xinhua News Agency said in a report on his meeting with Chinese president Hu Jintao. A return to the talks is likely to go hand-in-hand with new aid from China, including the implementation of economic agreements reached during the Chinese premier's visit to North Korea last year.

Kim's regime – which is flailing from years of international sanctions and a recent failed currency revaluation – has grown more dependent on Chinese aid and diplomatic support.

Beijing appears eager to provide support to prevent his impoverished country's implosion, which could touch off unrest on its border.

In footage run by Chinese state broadcaster CCTV yesterday, Kim, 68, who reportedly suffered a stroke in 2008, appeared thin and tired in meetings with Hu Jintao and other officials.

The Korean Central News agency said in a dispatch from Pyongyang that Kim was on an "unofficial" visit to China, but gave few details.

KCNA ran a message of thanks from Kim addressed to Hu Jintao, as well as officials of the four cities he visited; Tianjin, Beijing, Dalian, and Shenyang.

Kim expressed happiness at having confirmed "trust and understanding" between China and the North, and said he wishes to strengthen such relations further, the statement said.

This week's visit was Kim's fifth to China since succeeding his father as ruler in 1994, the last being in 2006.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported that Kim told Hu Jintao that he is ready to return to disarmament talks, under which North Korea agreed to dismantle its nuclear programmes in return for food and fuel aid.

Kim has made similar commitments in the past, but usually attaches conditions, such as a long-sought direct dialogue with the United States.

The agency did not say what, if any, conditions he set this time.

North Korea quit the talks, involving China, Russia, the two Koreas, Japan and the US, in December 2008, and then conducted a nuclear test that drew tightened UN sanctions.

China, which sent troops to back North Korea during the 1950-53 Korean War, already provides most of the aid needed to feed North Korea's malnourished population of 23 million and prop up an economy devastated by natural disasters and chaotic management.

Beijing's support for Kim is driven overwhelmingly by its own security concerns, which override any unhappiness it might have over North Korea's nuclear programme or rejection of economic reforms, Chinese scholars say.

That policy, however, comes at the risk of upsetting South Korea, where suspicion is rising that a North Korean torpedo destroyed a naval ship in March, killing 46 sailors. North Korea has denied involvement, but Seoul has said the six-nation nuclear talks cannot restart until a full investigation into the sinking is complete.