US presses for real progress in N Korea nuclear talks

BEIJING, Dec 17 (Reuters) North Korea is urging an end to what it calls US hostility, while Washington believes the time is ripe for real progress when six-party talks on ending North Korea's nuclear weapons programmes restart tomorrow.

Analysts and officials hold out little hope of a major breakthrough, however, when negotiations between the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, Russia and China resume in Beijing after a gap of more than a year.

The reclusive North had boycotted negotiations in response to a US crackdown on what Washington says is Pyongyang's counterfeiting of US dollars and money-laundering, which led to North Korean accounts at Macau's Banco Delta Asia being frozen.

North Korea test-fired missiles in July and carried out its first nuclear test in October, triggering international condemnation and UN sanctions supported even by its closest ally and biggest oil and aid supplier, China.

Pyongyang's envoy, Kim Kye-gwan, yesterday demanded an end to the financial sanctions as a prerequisite to progress on measures agreed in a September 2005 six-party accord.

In that accord, North Korea agreed in principle to scrap its nuclear weapons in exchange for aid and security guarantees.

''LONG AND DIFFICULT WEEK'' US envoy Christopher Hill said the US financial curbs issue would be dealt with in discussions carried out in parallel with the six-party talks. He was due to meet with the North Korean delegation following his arrival in Beijing today.

''If I do get a chance to see (Kim Kye-gwan) bilaterally ... I'd like to make sure that he's got enough room for manoeuvre, that is, he has enough instructions to make a deal,'' Hill said before he left Tokyo.

Hill said the negotiations should focus on dismantling North Korea's nuclear programmes.

''It's very important that we not focus on those financial issues but rather on the central matter of denuclearising the Korean peninsula,'' he told reporters in Tokyo yesterday.

''It'll be a very long and a very difficult week but we look forward to it because we believe that now is the time to make real progress on the ground, not just on paper.'' However, underlining differences among the parties that analysts say North Korea has sought to exploit in the past, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in a television interview on Saturday that the US sanctions on North Korea's external financing had ''obstructed'' the negotiating process.

Russia's delegation has a new leader for this round of talks.

Sergey Razov, ambassador to China, replaces Alexander Alexeyev, who had led the Russian delegation since August 2004.

The crisis has simmered since October 2002, when US officials said North Korea was pursuing a clandestine nuclear weapons programme.

Pyongyang responded by expelling international weapons inspectors, withdrawing from the Non-Proliferation Treaty and restarting the reactor at its Yongbyon nuclear facility.

Reuter AKJ GC0945