North Korea ready for nuke talks - US

North Korea appears ready to accept President George Bush’s proposal for six-party talks to resolve growing concerns about Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons, the State Department said today.

Spokesman Richard Boucher said that an initial round of three-way talks involving the United States, North Korea and China, held in Beijing last April, apparently will be expanded to include South Korea, Japan and Russia.

The first public word of what appears to be a major diplomatic breakthrough for the Bush Administration came from Russia, where North Korean Ambassador Pak Ui Chun met with Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Yuri Fedotov.

He said the Pyongyang leadership instructed him to express North Korea’s support for “six-sided talks with the participation of Russia on resolving the current complex situation on the Korean Peninsula.”

Boucher had no information on where or when the talks might be held. He said the administration was “encouraged, very encouraged” by the development.

The United States has been demanding the verifiable and permanent dismantling of North Korea’s uranium- and plutonium-based nuclear weapons programs.

There has been accelerating international concern over issue ever since North Korea acknowledged to US officials last October that it had secretly begun the uranium-based programme.

Since then it has taken steps to revive the plutonium-based programme. It also has withdrawn from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The Bush administration has rejected North Korea’s demand for one-on-one talks in favour of a broader approach.

Official maintain that the implications of the North’s programs affect all major countries of the region and that any negotiations on the issue should involve these nations.