North Korea offers return to nuclear talks

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il told a visiting Chinese envoy that his government would return to six-party nuclear disarmament talks if the United States showed sincerity and certain conditions were met, the North’s official news agency reported today.

The Korean Central News Agency did not elaborate on the conditions, but the report could indicate that North Korea would be ready to strike a deal with the US on returning to the talks but that it might need further diplomatic coaxing to do that.

In Washington, US State Department spokesman Lou Fintor said US officials were aware of the report and the United States was ready to resume the talks “without pre-conditions”.

Washington has previously opposed granting the North concessions merely for returning to the table.

Efforts to get North Korea back into the talks took on new urgency when Pyongyang flouted Washington and its allies on February 10 with its unconfirmed declaration that it had built nuclear weapons, and that it would boycott further six-party talks.

Kim's comments on the escalating stand-off came during a meeting with a high-level envoy from China, his impoverished country’s only remaining major ally.

Wang Jiarui, head of the Chinese Communist Party’s International Department, travelled to Pyongyang to urge the North to return to the talks, which involve the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia.

North Korea has previously said it would return to the talks only if the United States dropped its “hostile” policy toward the North.

It has condemned US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice’s description of North Korea as an ”outpost of tyranny”, calling the remark evidence that Washington seeks a regime change in Pyongyang.

North Korea seeks to trade its nuclear weapons programmes for massive economic aid, diplomatic recognition and a non-aggression treaty with Washington - measures that it hopes will guarantee the survival of Kim’s Stalinist regime.