N. Korea demands talks with U.S.

BEIJING -- North Korea demanded a bilateral dialogue with the United States on Friday, a day after it declared itself a nuclear power, but the Bush administration quickly rejected the demand and insisted that Pyongyang return to six-party talks on its nuclear program.

"It's not an issue between North Korea and the United States. It's a regional issue," White House press secretary Scott McClellan told reporters Friday morning. "And it's an issue that impacts all of its neighbors."

North Korea's demand, made by a senior member of its U.N. delegation in an interview published by a South Korean newspaper Friday, came as neighboring China, South Korea and Japan scrambled to salvage regional talks aimed at disarming the reclusive communist state. The comment suggested the Pyongyang government remains willing to discuss dismantling its untested nuclear arsenal under the right terms, despite its "indefinite" withdrawal Thursday from six-nation talks hosted by China.

"We will return to the six-nation talks when we see a reason to do so and the conditions are ripe," Han Sung Ryol, deputy chief of Pyongyang's U.N. mission, told Seoul's Hankyoreh newspaper Thursday in New York. "If the United States moves to have direct dialogue with us, we can take that as a signal that the United States is changing its hostile policy toward us.

"We have no other option but to regard the United States' refusal to have direct dialogue with us as an intention not to recognize us and to eliminate our system," Han was also quoted saying.

The remarks were the first public statements by a North Korean official since the government of President Kim Jong Il declared Thursday that it had manufactured nuclear weapons and announced it was withdrawing from disarmament talks with the United States, China, Japan, South Korea and Russia.

In response, McClellan said at the White House that President Bush will stand by the six-party format for the talks, which have been stalled since June, when the group held its third round of negotiations.

"There's plenty of opportunities for North Korea to speak directly with us in the context of the six-party talks," McClellan said Friday. He added, "All of North Korea's neighbors in the region recognize that this is a regional problem and it requires a multilateral approach for resolving it."

The demand for a direct dialogue with the United States represents a return to the negotiating position North Korea staked out before China persuaded it to join the six-nation talks that began in August 2003. The Bush administration had insisted on the multilateral talks, arguing that other countries were needed to hold Pyongyang to its promises, but it agreed to hold bilateral meetings with North Korean delegates during three rounds of the international conferences.

The new demand from North Korea appeared to bolster the assessment of many officials in the region that Pyongyang's surprise announcement Thursday was a gambit to win additional economic and diplomatic concessions from the United States and U.S. allies, as well as from China.

"This is an attempt to exact a higher price, but it's also a sign of frustration," said an Asian official in Beijing involved in the six-nation talks. Because the United States has refused to soften its position against giving North Korea any rewards until it discloses its nuclear programs and allows independent verification, "they feel ignored and neglected," he said.

But the official said North Korea was running out of ways to draw attention to its nuclear program, having already said, with little effect, that it had a "nuclear deterrent." Thursday's declaration appeared intended to raise pressure on the United States without crossing a "red line" by conducting a nuclear test, he said.

"If they exploded a nuclear bomb, it would definitely go to the U.N. Security Council, and even the Chinese would not object," the official said. "But without a nuclear explosion test, their credibility is doubtful. ... We should not exaggerate the situation."

Other officials conceded that North Korea's declaration seriously complicated the already stalled talks and that disarming the North now would be a far more difficult task. "There's no doubt that there are new questions about North Korea's intentions now," said one Asian diplomat. "Do they want to be a nuclear power or join ... the world community? They are wrong if they think they can have both."

Many in the region turned their attention to China, which enjoys leverage over North Korea because it supplies the country's feeble economy with critical food and fuel shipments. Until now, China has insisted it was not clear whether its communist ally had developed nuclear weapons.

"Particularly, we expect China will take a more positive and constructive role in convincing North Korea," South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon told reporters in Washington, where he was on a previously scheduled visit for talks with senior U.S. officials.

But Chinese analysts said Beijing was unlikely to take tougher measures against North Korea for fear of destabilizing and alienating a neighbor it considers a strategic buffer separating China from South Korea, a U.S. ally. Economic sanctions could cause North Korea to collapse, they warned, sending a flood of refugees into Chinese territory and perhaps resulting in a unified Korea hosting U.S. troops.

"China's first goal is peace on the Korean peninsula. Denuclearization is a secondary goal," said Shi Yinhong, an international relations scholar at People's University, noting that Beijing only put pressure on Pyongyang in 2003 when it appeared the Bush administration was considering military action.

Because the United States is unlikely to consider a military strike in Asia while it is fighting in Iraq, China will not feel much pressure now to take get tough with the North, Shi said. "The U.S. has been neutralized by Iraq, and China has been neutralized by its concern about its strategic relationship with North Korea. And Kim Jong Il knows this," he added.

Zhu Feng, a foreign policy specialist at Beijing University who has urged his government to take a harder line against North Korea, said the Chinese leadership will be forced to reassess its Korea policy. He said he did not believe the government would try to lure North Korea back to the talks with additional economic aid, as it has reportedly done in the past.

"This is a heavy blow to Beijing. It's very clear what kind of position Beijing expected Pyongyang to take, and Pyongyang said no way," he said. "Beijing has to prepare different options. They can't just continue saying that diplomatic pressure without economic pressure is the only way for a resolution."

There were immediate calls for the nations involved in the talks to present a united front against North Korea -- something that will not be easy. Although the parties at the table share the common goal of disarming North Korea, there have been increasingly sharp difference over how it should be done.

The Bush administration has called for a tough line, refusing to give in to a South Korean and Chinese position offering economic or diplomatic incentives up front if North Korea agrees to a first- stage freeze of its nuclear programs.

Japan -- expected to cover much of the billions of dollars in aid North Korea may eventually receive if it abandon its weapons -- maintains a stance similar to that of the United States. But the Tokyo government has an additional agenda: settling a separate dispute over Japanese citizens kidnapped by Pyongyang's spies during the 1970s and 1980s. Lack of resolution on that issue, it has said, would make it impossible for Tokyo to offer cash to the North.

"The United States remains tough toward the reclusive state, while China and South Korea are conciliatory toward it," Japan's Yomiuri newspaper said in an editorial Friday. The "countries should strongly urge North Korea to rejoin the six-way talks as soon as possible while maintaining a united front."

In South Korea, however, North Korea's announcement resulted in a round of political finger pointing, particularly by the conservative opposition Grand National Party (GNP), which has criticized President Roh Moo-hyun's policy of engaging the North and pressing change there through warming economic and political ties.

In a statement, the GNP said the North Korean announcement had demonstrated the intelligence failures by the current government. "The government should find out the truth about North Korea, instead of talking loud with loose information," the party said.

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