Related Event: Korean Nuclear Issue

The state North Korean news agency KCNA reported that Pyongyang decided to reopen the talks after North Korea's Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs Kim Kye Gwan held talks with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill in Beijing on Saturday.

Hopes were raised for a resumption of the talks when North Korean leader Kim Jong il told a South Korean envoy last month that Pyongyang could return in July if the United States met certain conditions, such as treating it with respect.

The KCNA report said the U.S. side clarified its official stand to recognise the North Korea as a sovereign state, not to invade it and hold bilateral talks within the framework of the six-party talks.

The report said the North Korea side interpreted the U.S. side's expression of its stand as a retraction of its remark designating the former as an outpost of tyranny and decided to return to the six-party talks.

North Korea declared in February that it possessed nuclear weapons, stepping up the pressure for concessions from regional powers keen to prevent it becoming a nuclear power.

Diplomatic efforts to restart the talks -- grouping North and South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the United States -- have been intensifying.

The six-party talks collapsed about a year ago after three rounds of multilateral meetings aimed at persuading Pyongyang to drop its nuclear program.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has arrived in Beijing, and will also visit Japan and South Korea during a July 8-13 visit to Asia.

China's Xinhua news agency said on Friday that former Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan would travel to North Korea next Tuesday, two days after meeting Rice in Beijing.

(Source: Reuters)