Foreign Correspondence

[StephanieVanbryce]

Bush Administration Tries to Coax Pyongyang Into Negotiations With Offer of Direct Talks

By Barry Schweid
The Associated Press


WASHINGTON (AP) - With negotiations sidetracked for nearly a year, the Bush administration offered a couple of carrots Monday to North Korea - direct talks and recognition of its sovereignty - in a bid to derail its nuclear weapons program.
The twin offers go to the heart of North Korea's quest for international acceptance, but neither is brand new and the impact on the often erratic leadership in Pyongyang is anyone's guess.

Meanwhile, International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei said Sunday that North Korea had plutonium that could be converted into five or six nuclear weapons.

Trying to stop a process that U.S. intelligence is convinced already has produced one or two bombs, a State Department spokesman offered direct U.S. talks if North Korea ends its boycott of six-party negotiations.

In the past, the United States has held discussions with North Korean officials against the backdrop of the six-party talks, department spokesman Tom Casey said. "And if the North Koreans were to return to the talks," he said, "we would certainly continue that practice."

The statement came in response to one by a North Korean foreign ministry spokesman that seemed to soften Pyongyang's demand for direct dealings with the Bush administration.

According to South Korea's Yonhap news agency, the spokesman said North Korea had not called for those talks separately from the six-party negotiations.

And Casey's response was receptive to that formula.

On Sunday, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the senior Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said "there was no harm in having direct talks in addition to the six-party talks," which include China, South Korea, Japan and Russia.

"We have direct talks with a lot of other places that we have totally disagreed with," he said. "We had direct talks with the Soviet Union."

North Korea has boycotted the six-party talks since last June, retracting a promise to return to the table last September.

The negotiations are over ending its nuclear program in exchange for economic incentives and assurances from the United States that its security would not be jeopardized.

The second U.S. gesture was a firm assertion that North Korea is a sovereign nation.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in a CNN interview, said "the United States, of course, recognizes that North Korea is sovereign. It's obvious. They are a member of the United Nations."

She also reiterated the administration's assurance that "we have no intention to attack or invade North Korea."

Summing up the two gestures, spokesman Casey said, "Clearly, the United States recognizes that North Korea is a sovereign nation. We've certainly talked with them in the context of the six-party talks."

AP-ES-05-09-05 1430EDT

This story can be found at: http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBG0Q51J8E.html