North Korea promised aid to halt nuclear programmes

Top US and North Korean negotiators met behind closed doors for an hour in Beijing today, and South Korea offered Pyongyang aid if it gives up its nuclear programme.

The meeting between Assistant US Secretary of State James Kelly and the North’s Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan was the highest official contact between the two sides since the nuclear crisis flared 16 months ago.

Details of their talks were not released.

Earlier, Kelly said the United States had no intention of invading or attacking the reclusive North.

Amid an outwardly collegial atmosphere, tensions were clear as delegates from China, the United States, North and South Korea, Japan and Russia held their first day of talks in Beijing.

At issue are allegations that Pyongyang has a uranium-based weapons programme as well as its known plutonium-based one. North Korean leader Kim Jong Il’s government has denied having a uranium-based programme.

Hours after Pyongyang issued a last-minute demand for compensation for shutting down its nuclear programme, the North’s delegate, Kim, said he would be sticking to his country’s best interests.

Washington’s delegate, meanwhile, said nothing but a wholesale elimination of the nuclear activities would do.

“The United States seeks complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement of all North Korea’s nuclear programmes, both plutonium and uranium,” Kelly said.

The dispute erupted in October 2002 when the United States said North Korea had acknowledged the existence of a nuclear programme that violated a 1994 agreement that bound Pyongyang to renounce nuclear development in exchange for oil and other aid.

North Korea’s partners in the talks all say they want a nuclear weapons-free Korean Peninsula.

Liu Jianchao, a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, described the first day of discussions as “sincere, frank and pragmatic”.

“The six parties affirmed solving the nuclear question through peaceful means. Whatever questions or difficulties arise, the talks process should be continued,” Liu said, adding that one option would be “working-level” talks among lower level officials.

After the first session today, South Korea said it had proposed “countermeasures” if the North froze its nuclear programme and showed signs of dismantling it. Seoul’s head delegate, Lee Soo-hyuck, said he presented the proposal during the opening session.

“If it is such a freeze, we can push for countermeasures,” Lee told reporters, using a term that is believed to refer to compensation for the North’s giving up its nuclear ambitions.

Last week, South Korean officials said Seoul was ready to resume energy aid to its communist neighbour after the dispute is resolved and the North dismantles its nuclear programmes.

Lee said he had told North Korea that its freeze must cover all nuclear programmes and be followed “in a short period of time” by steps toward a complete and verifiable dismantling of nuclear capabilities.