KEY POINTS:
SEOUL - North Korea appears more open to US and South Korean incentives to scrap its nuclear weapons programme, Seoul said today, providing further hope for progress in talks on the communist state's atomic ambitions.
North Korea's chief envoy to the six-country negotiations hinted on Tuesday there could
be a change to his country's demand for an end to a US crackdown on its finances before returning to the talks.
"South Korea and the United States have put forward, through close consultations, an aggressive proposal for the implementation of the Sept. 19 joint statement," South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-soon told reporters.
"North Korea has shown a flexible position on it," he said, referring to an agreement in principle reached at the talks in September 2005 to end the North's nuclear programmes in return for aid and security guarantees.
The official Chinese news agency Xinhua on Wednesday quoted the North's chief negotiator, Kim Kye-gwan, as saying he was "satisfied" with the results of his talks with the United States, Russia, China and South Korea on how to implement the Sept. 19 statement.
Kim added that those four countries had "reached consensus on many issues", Xinhua said.
South Korean and US envoys have said the talks involving the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States were likely to resume early next month and could make real progress.
Song declined to elaborate on the proposal made to North Korea, although he indicated that Pyongyang might be looking favourably at the initial incentives offered in exchange for it to start scrapping its weapons.
North Korea has agreed to freeze its nuclear reactor and accept inspectors in return for energy aid, according to South Korean news reports, but officials have declined to confirm the details of any proposal made to the North.
Song, who begins a three-day visit to China on Thursday, was asked about Pyongyang's position on the financial crackdown. "I want to stress that there is a consensus coming together that we need to overcome that issue and need to agree on the initial steps for the Sept. 19 joint statement," he said.
Japan's chief nuclear envoy, Kenichiro Sasae, arrived in Beijing on Wednesday to meet the Chinese host of the six-way talks, ahead of Beijing's expected announcement of a date for the next session.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters on her way to Paris that she had spoken to South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-soon on Wednesday and to the Japanese and Chinese foreign ministers on Tuesday.
"We are hoping for an early resumption (of the six-party talks). I think it's time to do that," Rice said.
"We have had productive preparatory discussions with all of the parties, including with the North Koreans, but it isn't going to be an agreement -- there's not going to be an agreement -- until we are in the six-party context and so I think people would like to get to an early resumption of the talks."
The last round of talks in December ended with no progress after negotiations resumed following more than a year of deadlock over the US financial squeeze.
Two months earlier, North Korea had conducted its first nuclear test in defiance of international warnings.
Despite the apparent easing of tension, North Korea's Rodong Sinmun newspaper railed in a commentary on Wednesday against what it said were US efforts to modernise its nuclear weapons.
"The US imperialists are keen to provoke a nuclear war in Korea," the official KCNA news agency quoted the communist party paper as saying.
- REUTERS