North Korea 'agrees to multilateral nuclear talks'

North Korea has agreed to multilateral talks about its suspected development of nuclear weapons, a South Korean spokesman said today.

The discussions will bring together officials from both Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia, assistant foreign minister Lee Soo-hyuk said.

He said he did know when they would take place, but that they would probably be held in the Chinese capital Beijing.

“North Korea informed our government in the early afternoon yesterday that it accepts six party talks to discuss ways to resolve the nuclear issue,” Lee said.

“We understand that North Korea informed the United States, Japan, China and Russia of its decision at about the same time it informed us.

“It was a brief notification and there was no significant conditions or obstacles attached,” he added in Seoul.

China hosted and took part in talks in April involving US and North Korean officials.

Meanwhile, South Korean Foreign Minister Yoon Young-kwan was meeting US Ambassador Thomas Hubbard to discuss the latest developments.

North Korea had insisted for months on one-on-one talks with Washington, and its willingness to accept US-proposed multilateral talks was a concession.

The nuclear stand-off began last October with North Korea’s acknowledgement to US officials that it was running a uranium-based nuclear weapons programme.

It has also been working on a plutonium-based programme in recent months.

North Korea had tried for months to lure the United States into a one-on-one discussion leading to a non-aggression pact.

But Washington held out for a broadly based international talks on the grounds that North Korea’s nuclear ambitions had implications for a number of countries, not just the United States.