US, NKorea to talk about nuclear deal under accord

New York, Mar 6: US and North Korean officials start talks today aimed at eventually normalising diplomatic ties as part of a agreement under which Pyongyang has pledged to scrap its nuclear arms programs for aid.

The talks at the US mission to the United Nations will mark the highest-level meeting on American soil since communist North Korea's leader Kim Jong-il sent a top envoy to Washington in 2000 in an abortive effort to improve relations.

North Korean envoy Kim Kye-gwan will meet his American counterpart, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, to begin resolving problems between two countries that have been bitter foes since the 1950-53 Korean War.

Skepticism runs deep about any dramatic shift in ties between the United States and a country that President George W Bush in 2002 labeled part of an ''axis of evil.'' For North Korea, antipathy to the United States, which sent thousands of troops to support South Korea in the war, has been a core element of its identity in five decades of mistrust between the two nations.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Monday's talks would begin with a meeting at 1730 hrs EST (2230 GMT) followed by a working dinner. He said tomorrow's talks were expected to run all day and played down expectations of any breakthrough toward normalization.

''I would expect that it ... would take some time in order for that process to be completed,'' he told reporters. ''It would be a matter of building up trust, it would be a matter of performance and today is just an initial discussion.'' ''Underlying all of this, North Korea can realize a different kind of relationship with the rest of the world. The pathway is open to them,'' he said. ''There is also another pathway of isolation ... if they do not perform.'' BREAKTHROUGH UNLIKELY Bilateral issues to be discussed include the US designation of North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism and American trade sanctions against the North under the Trading with the Enemy Act, the State Department said.

The United States will seek North Korea's assurances that it is committed to following through on an agreement to shut down within 60 days its main nuclear facility and allow inspectors in return for 50,000 tonnes of fuel oil.

''There's a long list of issues that have to be resolved and I don't think anyone is expecting this set of talks will lead to a breakthrough,'' said Bruce Klingner, a former CIA Korea expert now at the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank.

''They certainly will have to tell Hill what are they doing, what is the timetable, and the results of that will indicate how far and how fast this process is going to move,'' said Don Oberdorfer, a Korea expert at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies.

Oberdorfer was one of several US nuclear and Korea experts and former officials, including former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who were attending an informal meeting with Kim Kye-gwan ahead of formal talks today evening.

''There's nothing to wait for here,'' Kim told reporters as he entered the Korea Society in New York for the five-hour informal meeting.

The New York meeting is part of the first stage in implementing the February 13 deal reached in Beijing by the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, Russia and China after three years of talks that were punctuated by a North Korean nuclear test last October.

Further steps to fully ''disable'' North Korea's nuclear weapons program will gain the impoverished state another 950,000 tonnes of oil or other forms of aid of equivalent value.

Before the next round of six-party nuclear talks on March 19, North Korea is set to hold discussions with Japan in Hanoi and separate meetings on energy aid, the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and regional security.

Reuters

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