US wants Korea talks...on its terms

A TOP US envoy ended a diplomatic shuttle through Asia on Sunday, reporting no new initiative to defuse a nuclear crisis with isolated North Korea amid signs that Washington wants to talk, but only on its own terms.

Moving further away from an initial hard line, the US ambassador to South Korea said his government was ready to go beyond food aid and to consider economic co-operation with North Korea to persuade it to abandon its nuclear ambitions.

Another diplomatic mission was being pursued by a Russian envoy who held talks with officials in Pyongyang in search of a solution to the crisis. A UN official has said millions of people in the impoverished communist state are short of food.