New talks on NKorea to open after 1st atom test

BEIJING, Dec 18: Five countries will stage a fresh push to persuade North Korea to forsake nuclear weapons in talks opening today, with key negotiators wary over how Pyongyang will respond after staging its first atomic blast.

The two Koreas, United States, China, Japan and Russia have gathered in Beijing for six-party talks since 2003.

These bouts of verbal trench warfare have so far produced no breakthroughs beyond a vague joint statement in September 2005 that North Korea would give up nuclear weapons in return for aid and security guarantees.

But in the wake of North Korea's October 9 nuclear explosion, the chief US negotiator at the talks, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, has said the time had come for Pyongyang to make good on that promise or face isolation.

''If they want a future with us, if they want to work with us, if they want to be a member of the international community, they're going to have to get out of this nuclear business,'' Hill told reporters yesterday.

Most officials and observers believe that this week's talks in a tree-lined state compound are unlikely to draw swift compromise from Pyongyang, emboldened by its nuclear blast.

South Korea's chief envoy Chun Yung-woo said the talks would be ''exploratory.'' U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said earlier that the negotiations were part of a process that could not be judged by one session.

The North's chief envoy, Kim Kye-gwan, showed no softening on the eve of talks, telling Washington to drop financial restrictions if it wants the 2005 statement implemented.

North Korea boycotted the six-party talks for over a year, bristling at a US financial crackdown on claimed currency counterfeiting and money laundering by Pyongyang. US Treasury officials will meet the North Koreans in Beijing this week to discuss the financial standoff.

CHINESE URGENCY

As Hill seeks concessions from North Korea, he has suggested the United States has found a vigorous ally in China, whose traditional support for its communist neighbour has dimmed.

''We're having a very good understanding with the Chinese about what we need to do,'' Hill told reporters late yesterday.

''The Chinese delegation and we have felt the urgency, having watched the DPRK conduct a missile test this summer and then a nuclear explosion this fall.'' Most Chinese analysts agree that the nuclear blast, which China publicly warned against, galvanised Beijing policy-makers to pressure Pyongyang more actively, setting aside some niceties of communist comradeship.

''Beijing's policy has changed markedly. Now China is pushing North Korea harder than before to keep its commitments in the joint statement,'' said Zhu Feng, an international security expert at Peking University. ''The test crisis led to the view that we cannot just always view this as their (US) business.'' But North Korea, an impoverished fortress state ruled under a harsh doctrine of self-reliance, will not easily abandon its nuclear arsenal, however primitive, said analysts.

''They will never abandon nuclear weapons, and the US financial sanctions are a perfect excuse,'' said Shen Dingli, an international politics expert at Shanghai's Fudan University. ''They want to spin it out.''

REUTERS

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