US signals impatience on North Korea nuclear talks

BRUSSELS - The United States is committed to resuming six-way talks on ending North Korea's nuclear arms development but would pursue other avenues if efforts failed, its top envoy to the talks has said.

Christopher Hill, US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, said it would be a year next month since North Korea had "boycotted" the talks and that Pyongyang showed little sign of wanting to come back to the table.

"At some point we are going to have to sit down and work out what the way forward is," he told a conference in Brussels, where he will brief European Union officials on the issue.

"At present we have a situation where North Korea does not seem to be interested. We have a number of options. One option we do not have is to walk away."

He said talks comprising the two Koreas, China, the United States, Japan and Russia were Washington's preferred forum but did not rule out other forms of dialogue as long as interested countries such as South Korea had a say.

"We want the six-party process to work. It's the right format," he said.

"We are prepared to meet with the North Koreans in a number of formats but it must be understood by all -- especially the North Koreans -- that nuclear weapons are not a US problem. They are everyone's problem," he added.

He stressed it was too early to speculate on when the issue should go to the UN Security Council. "If we start writing off the six-party process that will be a self-fulfilling prophecy."

North Korea confirmed on Sunday that it had spoken with the United States on May 13 at the United Nations and that it would respond at an "appropriate time" to US efforts to revive the talks, stalled since June 2004.

The comments have been interpreted as a sign that Pyongyang is ready to return to the talks despite growing anti-US rhetoric of recent weeks.

Washington and Tokyo have called on China, North Korea's main backer, to put pressure on Pyongyang to resume the talks.

Hill said North Korea's nuclear programme was a threat not only to the strategic balance in East Asia but risked plutonium, a key part of the atom bomb, getting into the wrong hands.

- REUTERS