http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/24/AR2005072401025.html

By Anthony Faiola

Washington Post Foreign Service

Monday, July 25, 2005; Page A12

SEOUL -- Clusters of Korean War veterans were gathered at their favorite shady spot in downtown Seoul on a recent afternoon, arguing about a hot topic among South Koreans -- the massive cost of unification with North Korea.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/24/AR2005072400462.html

By Edward Cody

Washington Post Foreign Service

Monday, July 25, 2005; Page A12

BEIJING, July 24 -- Key participants in long-stalled negotiations to eliminate North Korea's nuclear weapons program set out modest goals Sunday for a new round of talks opening Tuesday, saying they hoped for enough progress to get the negotiations moving again after a 13-month deadlock.

http://nytimes.com/2005/07/25/politics/25korea.html?hp&ex=1122350400&en=ad7e30b94fb3862d&amp
;ei=5094&partner=homepage

By DOUGLAS JEHL and DAVID E. SANGER

Published: July 25, 2005

This article was reported by William J. Broad, Douglas Jehl, David E. Sanger and Thom Shanker, and written by Mr. Jehl and Mr. Sanger.

WASHINGTON, July 24 - Early this year, American spy satellites detected a spike in suspicious tunneling activity at a highly secretive military site in the mountains of North Korea.

By CHRISTOPHER BUCKLEY,

International Herald Tribune

Published: July 25, 2005

BEIJING, July 25 - The United States unexpectedly held talks with North Korea here today, on the eve of critical six-nation negotiations intended to defuse North Korea's nuclear program.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/25/international/asia/25cnd-korea.html

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-sixparty25jul25,1,664925.story?coll=la-headlines
-world

NEWS ANALYSIS

N. Korea Talks May Be a Last Chance

# After little progress so far and a long delay in resuming six-party nuclear discussions, the stakes are high for this week's negotiations.

By Ching-Ching Ni, Times Staff Writer

BEIJING -- When the United States, North Korea and four other nations return to the negotiating table Tuesday to resume long-stalled talks on ending the Pyongyang government's nuclear weapons program, it might well be their last chance for a breakthrough.

Three previous rounds of discussions in Beijing dating back to 2003 were heavy on posturing and light on engagement. The last, in June 2004, ended without progress, and it has taken more than a year of intense diplomacy to lure North Korea back to negotiations.

http://agonist.org/?op=search&offset=30&type=story&old_type=comment&old_string=%22no
rth+korea%22&string=%22north+korea%22&count=30&orderby=date

http://joongangdaily.joins.com/200507/25/200507252337567909900090409041.html

July 26, 2005 ㅡ BEIJING ― Preparing for the resumption today of six-nation negotiations aimed at ending the North Korea nuclear standoff, delegates held preliminary talks yesterday, including a face-to-face meeting between the top U.S. and North Korean representatives.

Christopher Hill, Washington's top envoy to the talks and the North's Kim Gye-gwan, reportedly exchanged views on the structure of the talks and about their respective positions. North Korean officials also met with the Russian delegation yesterday while the United States delegation met with a number of other participants involved in the negotiations. Since 2003, the United States, China, both Koreas, Japan and Russia have tried to bring an end to the North Korea nuclear crisis. Following a meeting with the North on Sunday, Seoul's delegation met with the Japanese delegation yesterday to discuss the Japanese abductee issue, which Tokyo has said it would bring up in the overall discussions.

http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/200507/kt2005072519363710160.htm

By Park Song-wu

Korea Times Correspondent

BEIJING _ Top delegates from North Korea and the United States held an informal meeting here on Monday to ``compare notes'' prior to Tuesday's official opening of the six-party talks on Pyongyang's nuclear programs.

During the 80-minute meeting at the Diaoyutai state guesthouse, the two sides checked each other's willingness for progress in the fourth round of the talks, which resumed after a 13-month hiatus, a Seoul official said on a condition of anonymity.

http://www.iht.com/protected/articles/2005/07/24/opinion/edkristof.php

Am I only one that thinks the talks have been set up to fail? I thought we were told human rights, japanese abductions were not going to be on the table. It seems that Japan and the Us are looking for an out.

JIM YARDLEY

Published: July 28, 2005

BEIJING - North Korea on Wednesday criticized an American plan to defuse the nuclear crisis, saying the proposal demands too many steps toward dismantling the country's nuclear program before providing any corresponding aid or energy assistance, a senior United States official said in a background meeting with reporters.

North Korea's criticism of the American plan, first proposed in June 2004 before the talks broke off, was not unexpected, noted the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the private nature of the discussions. But it underscored the "fundamental differences" between the countries as participants in the six-nation nuclear talks took on the difficult task of finding common ground to resolve the crisis, now in its third year.

Indeed, the United States and North Korea still do not agree on a definition of denuclearization, the core issue of the talks. North Korea wants a broader definition that, according to some reports, would require the removal of all nuclear weapons from the Korean Peninsula. The United States, which denies having nuclear weapons in South Korea, has rejected this demand and has insisted that the talks focus solely on North Korea's nuclear program.

But despite the differences, the mood at the talks remained somewhat optimistic, even with respect to the semantics of defining denuclearization. "In terms of finding a common definition," the senior American official said, "I hope we are going to be able to do that."

continued...

Edward Cody

Washington Post Foreign Service

Thursday, July 28, 2005; Page A19

BEIJING - North Korea on Wednesday formally rejected the terms of a long-standing U.S. proposal for resolving the standoff over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program, diplomats said.

The North Korean objections, although expected, underlined the difficulties negotiators face in newly resumed six-party talks here despite improved atmospherics and what diplomats described as increased resolve to make progress toward banning nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula.

"The DPRK is a country that prides itself on being different, and this is certainly proving true in these negotiations," a senior U.S. official said, using the initials of North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. "Things are not easy."

As described by U.S. officials, the proposal first made in June 2004 would provide aid and security assurances to North Korea if it agreed to a schedule that would do away with its nuclear weapons program.

North Korean diplomats complained, the senior U.S. official said, that the proposal was front-loaded with demands that the Pyongyang government agree to dismantle its nuclear program and allow inspections by outsiders before receiving the security assurances and economic aid it has demanded in return.

Christopher Hill, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs and head of the U.S. negotiating team at the talks, underlined the U.S. approach in remarks Tuesday at this round's opening session. He said the goal in sequencing the give-and-take should be "words for words and actions for actions."

The U.S. proposal was portrayed when first proposed 13 months ago as a sign of flexibility designed to break the deadlock in the multinational talks. Since then, however, North Korea has altered the equation, announcing last February that it possesses nuclear weapons.

The senior U.S. official, who briefed reporters on condition his name not be used, said Wednesday that the administration's proposal still represented a basis for talks despite North Korea's demand for more simultaneity. But in the first two days of contacts, he said, the six delegations -- China, Russia, Japan and South Korea in addition to the United States and North Korea -- have mainly laid out their respective positions. As the talks continue, the immediate effort will center on building a list of "agreed principles" that can be exhibited as a sign of progress and, eventually, expanded during further talks, he said.

continued...

.S. won't do bilateral nuclear pact with N.Korea

28 Jul 2005 17:29:20 GMT

Source: Reuters

Background  CRISIS PROFILE: Death and displacement in Chechnya

MORE

(Adds background)

WASHINGTON, July 28 (Reuters) - Despite agreeing to further one-on-one talks with North Korea, the United States again insisted on Thursday it would not negotiate any bilateral agreement with Pyongyang on its nuclear program.

"We have no intention of negotiating any bilateral agreement with North Korea. That approach was tried and it failed," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.

The United States is engaged in six-party talks in Beijing to try to end North Korea's nuclear program and is resisting any pressure from Pyongyang to come to a bilateral agreement with the communist state.

The United States and North Korea agreed Thursday to hold more one-on-one contacts, despite deep differences over proposals to scrap Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programs.

"This round seems a little bit different than previous rounds in terms of a good atmosphere and certainly the length. ... We are bumping up against the point at which usually the parties talk at each other and leave," a senior State Department official told reporters.

more

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N28144664.htm

North Korea Nuclear Talks Reach 4th Day

Saturday July 30, 2005 1:46 AM

AP Photo BEJ104

By BURT HERMAN

Associated Press Writer

BEIJING (AP) - An improved atmosphere might be the most significant accomplishment as six-nation talks on North Korean nuclear disarmament stretched into their longest round Friday, but the top U.S. envoy stressed ``this isn't going to be easy.''

After a fourth session of one-on-one meetings, American and North Korean diplomats remained split over the North's demand for U.S. concessions before giving up its nuclear weapons program and its insistence on having a peaceful atomic energy project.

Nevertheless, ``I think all would agree that we have a continuing good atmosphere,'' State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

Delegates were working on a statement of principles that could evolve into an agreement, McCormack said in Washington. ``You have all the parties agreeing what the goal of the six-party talks is now: a denuclearized Korean peninsula,'' he said.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill's meetings with North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan have been a marked change that has raised optimism over the talks, which have been run more flexibly than the previous rigidly scheduled negotiations.

``The fact that they're continuing to talk to each other is by far the most encouraging sign,'' said Peter Beck, the Seoul-based director of the North East Asia Project for the International Crisis Group, an independent think tank.

Beck said the latest round of talks has continued longer than previous rounds - which were marked by bombast - because neither the North nor the Americans seemed to want to be blamed for scuttling the discussions by walking away.

Hill said the sides also hadn't come to terms on North Korea's alleged uranium enrichment program or whether Pyongyang should be allowed to have a peaceful atomic energy project.

``Still we have a lot of differences that remain,'' Hill told reporters Friday evening. ``I don't want to suggest for a minute that this is going to be easy.''

Despite the apparent impasse, the No. 2 South Korean delegate, Cho Tae-yong, said Friday's meetings ``were not lower than my expectation.''

``It's too early to pack, or draw conclusions,'' he said.

more

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5177345,00.html

N. Korea must quit atom work, U.S. insists

By Chris Buckley International Herald Tribune

MONDAY, AUGUST 1, 2005

BEIJING The United States remains insistent that North Korea abandon all its nuclear programs, including civilian operations, but also supports a South Korean offer to send electricity to the North as a potential reward for denuclearization, the chief U.S. negotiator at disarmament talks in Beijing said Sunday.

"If you're asking me about peaceful use, we have to be very clear that in our view, the DPRK has to get out of this business," the U.S. negotiator, Christopher Hill, told reporters in Beijing in answer to a question about whether the United States would accept "peaceful" nuclear activities in North Korea.

He was referring to that country by its formal name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

"The ROK has made a very good electricity plan, and I think the DPRK has much to work on without talking about nuclear-type things," Hill said. ROK refers to South Korea, or the Republic of Korea.

Hill made the comments as six-party talks about scrapping North Korea's nuclear weapons capabilities appeared set to enter a second week of bargaining over a joint statement of the principles for future, more detailed disarmament talks that the host country, China, circulated Sunday.

North Korea said Sunday that it would rejoin the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and accept international inspections of its nuclear facilities, which it wants to keep, "if the nuclear issue finds a satisfactory solution" and the United States accepts "peaceful coexistence."

The statement was issued by the country's official Korea Central News Agency.

Kim Jong Il's impoverished dictatorship may be lured into signing the joint statement and continuing disarmament talks by new rewards promised by other countries, especially South Korea's recent offer to provide two million kilowatts of electricity every year from 2008 in return for disarmament, analysts said.

"It was a very astute move," Kent Calder, an expert on Northeast Asian energy politics at Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, said of Seoul's electricity offer.

"It does provide something that's badly needed by North Korea, given its desperate energy situation, but from a South Korean point of view it doesn't compromise Washington."

The Bush administration has resisted making direct offers of U.S. aid to Pyongyang.

But while the South Korean offer may have helped persuade the North to return to talks, some experts see potential problems that may damage its attractiveness at the negotiating table and threaten its viability.

"It was very much a symbolically driven gesture," said Peter Hayes, the director of the Nautilus Institute, a San Francisco-based research group that focuses on North Korea.

North Korea's dilapidated power grid is probably unable to absorb the power, and the scheme is likely to cost much more than the $2.4 billion Seoul has committed, Hayes and other researchers concluded in a recent report.

"It could be a very important long-term project," Hayes said in an interview, "but in the shorter term it's just not the right project to hand the North Koreans in return for nuclear disarmament."

North Korea has a population of 22 million and generated 31 billion kilowatt hours of electricity in 2001 - about a third of 1991 levels - while South Korea, with a population of 49 million, generated 288 billion kilowatt hours in 2002, according to U.S. Department of Energy estimates.

South Korea presented the plan to Kim Jong Il in June and publicly announced it on July 12. North Korea agreed to a starting date for the current talks two weeks later.

The South Korean unification minister, Chung Dong Young, said at the July announcement that the offer was a "last chance" for the North, which has been isolated by the United States and its allies since February, when Pyongyang announced that it had nuclear weapons and would make more.

The U.S. secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, has called South Korea's offer a "very creative idea" and a "considerable improvement over where we have been" in easing North Korea's energy shortages.

more

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/07/31/news/korea.php