N. Korea Agrees To Talks

North Korea said Tuesday that it has agreed to six-way nuclear talks starting Feb. 25, prompting expectations the countries will discuss the communist nation's offer to freeze its atomic programs in exchange for concessions from Washington.

The announcement was a breakthrough after months of trying to restart negotiations among the United States, China, Russia, Japan and the two Koreas. An earlier round, aimed at persuading North Korea to abandon its nuclear programs, ended in August without much progress.

Hours after the North's official news agency, KCNA, said the reclusive Stalinist government had agreed to return to the negotiating table, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue announced China would host the upcoming meeting.

Neither KCNA nor Zhang said how long this month's meeting would last. The previous round, held in Beijing in August, ran three days.

Zhang said all sides decided that conditions are right to hold talks now and that all should "exert sincerity and flexibility." Beijing hoped the standoff would be resolved "peacefully through dialogue," she said.

Washington and Pyongyang had disagreed on ground rules for resuming six-nation talks.

North Korea had insisted it needs a nuclear "deterrent" against a possible U.S. attack. But it has said it would suspend its nuclear programs as a first step in talks if Washington lifts sanctions against the North, resumes oil shipments, and removes North Korea from its list of countries that sponsor terrorism.

The United States has said North Korea must first verifiably begin dismantling its nuclear programs before receiving any concessions.

South Korean's Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo-hyuck said he expects North Korea to explain its position and its offer to freeze its nuclear activities at the coming round, and that other countries will likely voice their opinions on the offer. China's Zhang said details were still being discussed.

"We're not bringing any agendas," Lee said. "The agenda is resolving the North Korean nuclear issue."

Lee said his government had not promised any concessions in response to the freeze offer.

"Though we cannot have big expectations, we think what each country wants will be made clear this time," South Korea's Lee said.

In Moscow, Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov said there was a "great" difference between Washington and Pyongyang, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency.

He said that at the upcoming meeting, "not a breakthrough but an understanding in what direction to develop the negotiating process is necessary."

China's Zhang wouldn't say if any of the sides made concessions in order for the talks to take place. Various conditions and counter-conditions have been issued in recent months as diplomats tried to arrange a new meeting.

Kim Ryong Song, a North Korean Cabinet Councilor in Seoul this week for high-level talks with South Korean counterparts, said progress at the upcoming talks would hinge on Washington's stance.

"The outcome of the second round of six-nation talks will depend on how the United States thinks about our basic positions, and what measures they bring to the talks," Kim said.

Kim called North Korea's proposals "fair."

South Korea, Japan and the United States are considering holding a meeting a week to 10 days prior to the Feb. 25 talks to prepare for the negotiations, Lee said.

In Tokyo, Japanese, U.S., and Australian diplomats met Tuesday to discuss North Korea and Iraq. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage met with Yukio Takeuchi, the top bureaucrat in Japan's foreign ministry. Details of their discussions were not immediately available.

The officials agreed it was necessary to strengthen the power of the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, said a Foreign Ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

IAEA inspectors were expelled from North Korea at the end of 2002, and the Communist government later withdrew from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and said it had reactivated its nuclear facilities.

The nuclear dispute flared in October 2002 when U.S. officials accused North Korea of running a uranium program in violation of a 1994 deal. The U.S. cut off fuel shipments to the North, so Pyongyang booted nuclear inspectors and vowed to resume plutonium processing. The North has also threatened to conduct a nuclear test.

U.S. intelligence estimates that North Korea already may have one or two crude nuclear devices.

Earlier in 2002, President Bush accused the North of being part of an "axis of evil" that also included Iran and Iraq, and from the first months of his presidency, Mr. Bush displayed skepticism of the warming of relations between North and South Korea that his predecessor, President Clinton, had encouraged.

That hard-line U.S. posture is what Pyongyang cites to justify its nuclear program, saying that the Bush administration's doctrine of preemptive war leaves North Korea at risk.