North Korea agrees to revived nuclear talks

North Korea said today it would return to nuclear disarmament talks to try to resolve a US campaign aimed at choking the communist nation’s access to foreign banks.

Stepping back from further provocative moves after conducting its first nuclear test three weeks ago, the North said it hoped to see a resolution of the financial issue at the resumed six-nation arms talks that it had boycotted for a year.

It emphasised that a direct meeting with the US during previously unpublicised negotiations in Beijing yesterday had made the diplomatic breakthrough possible.

North Korea has refused since November 2005 to return to the arms talks in anger over the US financial restrictions, which blacklisted a Macau bank where the regime held accounts for its alleged complicity in counterfeiting and money laundering. US officials had sought to rally other countries to prevent the North from doing business abroad, saying all transactions involving Pyongyang were suspect.

Today, the North’s foreign ministry said Pyongyang “decided to return to the six-party talks on the premise that the issue of lifting financial sanctions will be discussed and settled between the (North) and the US within the framework of the six-party talks”.

The talks – which include China, Japan, Russia, the United States and the two Koreas – reached an agreement last September where the North pledged to abandon its nuclear programme in exchange for aid and security guarantees. But the last meeting a month later failed to make any progress and then the North refused to attend over the financial issue.

The US had previously maintained that the financial issue was a matter of law enforcement separate from the nuclear talks. But in Beijing yesterday, the chief US nuclear envoy, assistant secretary of state Christopher Hill, said Washington agreed to take up the matter in the revived arms negotiations.

However, there were conflicting signals from the US. White House press secretary Tony Snow later insisted the US made no promises to link the financial dispute to the nuclear one, but agreed only that “issues like that may be discussible at some future time”.

North Korea had also long sought a direct meeting with the US, which it had yesterday in Beijing amid other sessions also involving China.

The North emphasised today in the statement carried by its official Korean Central News Agency that the breakthrough on returning to the nuclear talks was made possible by a bilateral meeting with the US

The North’s foreign ministry also referred to its October 9 nuclear test, noting that the country “recently took a self-defensive countermeasure against the US daily increasing nuclear threat and financial sanctions against it”.

Hill said the nuclear talks could resume as easy as November or December, but acknowledged the negotiations still had a long way to go.

US president George Bush cautiously welcomed the deal and thanked the Chinese for brokering it. But he said the agreement would not sidetrack American efforts to enforce sanctions adopted by the United Nations Security Council to punish Pyongyang for its October 9 nuclear test.