U.S. diplomacy wins over N. Korea

From wire reports

The United States achieved a key diplomatic goal when North Korea eased its insistence on one-on-one talks with Washington and agreed Friday to join U.S.-proposed multilateral talks, where it will find little sympathy for its suspected nuclear weapons programs.

President Bush hailed North Korea's agreement to join six-nation talks aimed at curbing its nuclear aspirations, and he reminded Kim Jong Il that Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, would receive an array of international assistance, including from the United States, if it ended its nuclear development program.

In the past it was the lone voice of the United States speaking clearly about this," Bush said. "Now we'll have other parties who have got a vested interest in peace on the Korean Peninsula."

A White House official later pointedly left open the probability of bilateral talks between U.S. and North Korean officials taking place during the planned multiparty discussions.

Pyongyang's agreement to enter the talks -- and Washington D.C.'s willingness to countenance direct U.S.-North Korean discussions -- amounted to a compromise by both sides. The procedural breakthrough has raised hopes that a negotiated settlement might be possible in a dispute that has raised the specter of war on the Korean peninsula, where about 37,000 U.S. troops are defending South Korea.

Until this week, Pyongyang had insisted on negotiating only with Washington. But Bush would not budge from his stance that any talks must include China, Russia, Japan and South Korea.

Bush has insisted that a nuclear-free Korean peninsula could be achieved through diplomatic means -- in the face of criticism that he was being inconsistent by using force to disarm Iraq while insisting on negotiating the disarmament of North Korea. North Korea is believed to have at least two nuclear bombs and recently told the United States it had finished reprocessing enough spent plutonium fuel rods to manufacture several more.

The president spoke about what he called "positive developments" at the end of a Cabinet meeting on Friday morning. He is to depart today for his annual August work-vacation at his ranch near Crawford, Texas, after undergoing his yearly physical.

Bush told reporters in the White House Cabinet Room that he insisted on multilateral negotiations "so that there is more than one voice speaking to Mr. Kim Jong-Il."

Bush also said he felt "upbeat about the fact that others are assuming responsibility for peace besides the United States of America."

At the State Department, spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters that the North Koreans had invited U.S. officials to meet them in New York Thursday to deliver the news directly that they agreed to multilateral talks. North Korea's only diplomatic mission in the United States is at the United Nations.

Boucher indicated that North Korea's desire for some sort of nonaggression guarantee from the United States would be one topic of discussion at the upcoming talks.

The confrontation with North Korea over its nuclear programs began in October, when U.S. officials confronted Pyongyang with evidence that it was secretly pursuing a uranium-based nuclear weapons program. U.S. officials said the North Koreans confirmed the reports.

Tensions escalated when Pyongyang subsequently withdrew from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which it signed in 1994, and restarted a plutonium-producing nuclear reactor. North Korea recently claimed to have reprocessed 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods. The North Koreans have insisted on face-to-face talks with the United States and a formal nonaggression treaty. The United States has refused to give in to what it said was North Korea's blackmail, and has insisted that the Stalinist regime abandon its nuclear weapons program. Talks were last held in April, among the United States, North Korea and China, but ended with scant progress.