U.S. To Reopen N. Korea Talks

(AP)  President George W. Bush, despite deep suspicion of a country he considers part of an "axis of evil," will soon send an envoy to North Korea to reopen security talks with Pyongyang for the first time in almost two years.

The decision was reached after two days of talks earlier this week with North Korean officials. Bush notified South Korean President Kim Dae-jung of his decision during a telephone call Wednesday. Officials said the envoy will travel to Pyongyang at an early date.

Bush and Kim "agreed that real progress with the North depends on full resolution of the security issues on the Korean Peninsula, including the North's possession and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles," White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said.

North Korea has been reaching out to adversaries of late, receiving Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi last week and concluding an agreement with South Korea in August to construct two rail lines across the DMZ.

The identity of the U.S. envoy who will travel to Pyongyang has not been disclosed but it is expected to be Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly.

Kelly was to have gone to Pyongyang in early July but the visit was postponed, partly because a bloody clash at sea on June 29 between vessels of the two Koreas soured the environment.

Secretary of State Colin Powell had an informal chat with North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun in late July at a meeting of countries from the Asia-Pacific region. No agreements were reached but the meeting served to break the ice.

A week later, the U.S. State Department dispatched Jack Pritchard, a Korea expert, to North Korea for a ceremony to mark the groundbreaking for two new light water nuclear reactors.

The U.S.-backed project is designed to replace plutonium-producing reactors the North used to rely on. It is being financed largely by South Korea and Japan.

No one is expecting early progress once the security talks with Pyongyang resume, and Fleischer made no effort to soft pedal U.S. concerns about the communist outpost.

"Nothing has changed in the president's thinking about North Korean President Kim Jong Il and the North Korean leader's starvation of his own people, the militarization efforts that he's leading, the massive number of conventional weapons that he has on the border with South Korea, as well as proliferation of weapons of mass destruction," he said.

U.S.-North Korean relations reached a high point two years ago when then-U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright made a groundbreaking visit to Pyongyang.

She discussed the possibility of a deal under which the United States would provide economic benefits to the North if Pyongyang agreed to curb its development and export of long range missiles. The talks were inconclusive.

In June 2001, Bush said he was willing to reopen talks with North Korea but the North offered no response.

Any inclination the North may have had to accept the offer was set back after Bush in January listed Pyongyang as a member of an "axis of evil" that also included Iraq and Iran.

In the spring, however, the North began showing interest in renewing the dialogue with Washington.

Not long thereafter, Pyongyang undertook the first major economic reform in its history, introducing some elements of a market economy.

The country has been in an economic crisis since the collapse of its main benefactor, the Soviet Union, almost 11 years ago. The peak of the crisis occurred in 1996-97 when, according to some experts, as many as 2 million people starved to death.