NORTH KOREA: In the latest twist to the increasingly bizarre nuclear stand-off on the Korean peninsula, the reclusive leader of North Korea, Mr Kim Jong-il, told a visiting Chinese official that his country was prepared to return to the negotiating table for six-party talks if the United States promised to be sincere and if conditions were ripe.
Mr Kim was receiving a visit from Wang Jiarui, an influential figure who heads up the Chinese Communist Party's international liaison department, when he made the surprise statement. He said his country had never been against the six-party talks and was committed to the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.
"We will go to the negotiating table anytime if there are mature conditions for the six-party talks thanks to the concerted efforts of the parties concerned in the future," he said, in comments carried yesterday on the state's official KCNA news agency.
He went on to say he hoped the United States would show "trustworthy sincerity and move", KCNA said.
They were Mr Kim's first comments since North Korea told the world earlier this month that it had nuclear weapons, upping the stakes in the nuclear stand-off and sending ripples of fear around the region.
North Korea also pulled out from the six-party talks, attended by the two Koreas, China, Russia, the United States and Japan.
Pyongyang insists it needs nuclear weapons to counter the growing threat of invasion from the US, which has repeatedly referred to the country as one of the worst offenders in President George W. Bush's "axis of evil".
So far, there have been three rounds of talks in the Chinese capital Beijing aimed at ending Pyongyang's nuclear programmes in return for aid and security guarantees, but the sides have been unable to agree on terms for a fourth round.
North Korea has said recent statements by US President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice labelling the North as one of "the outposts of tyranny" proved Washington's hostility and its designs to overturn the North's government.
China is North Korea's only friend in the region and Beijing has been working to find a resolution to the dispute, part of China's efforts to boost its international diplomatic profile.
During his four-day visit to Pyongyang, in which he met Mr Kim in his capacity as general secretary of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, Mr Wang reiterated that China wanted a nuclear-free peninsula, saying it was in the best interests of the people of North Korea and China, and also in the interests of regional security.
"We wish all sides will resolve the nuclear issue through dialogue and pay close attention to the reasonable concerns of the DPRK," Mr Wang said.
The last round of multilateral talks in late June floundered on reported threats by Pyongyang that it would test a nuclear device if Washington did not soften its hard line on North Korea.
North Korea is effectively bankrupt and has suffered food shortages for many years. It wants economic compensation and security guarantees in return for abandoning its nuclear programme.
The nuclear dispute has been running since October 2002, when US officials accused North Korea of running a secret uranium-enrichment program in violation of international treaties.
Washington and its allies cut off free fuel oil shipments for the impoverished country under a 1994 deal with the US.
North Korea retaliated by quitting the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in early 2003 and restarting its plutonium-based nuclear weapons program, frozen under the 1994 agreement.