U.S. - North Korea Talks Resume

After a two-year lull, a U.S. envoy visited North Korea on Thursday to resume security talks with a nation that President Bush described as part of "an axis of evil."

The dispatch of U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly signaled Washington's willingness to pursue different tracks with its declared enemies. While negotiating with North Korea, the United States has said Iraq must allow unfettered arms inspections or face military action.

Still, Kelly's trip to North Korea was not expected to yield breakthroughs on contentious issues: the North's weapons programs, its concentration of conventional forces near the Demilitarized Zone that separates the two Koreas, and its suppression of human rights.

"This trip is of the nature of what dogs do when they first meet each other. They're just going to smell each other out," said Aidan Foster-Carter, a Korea expert at Leeds University in Britain.

Kelly and his delegation left Seoul aboard a small U.S. military plane, flying off the west coast to avoid passing through the heavily guarded air space over the most militarized border in the world.

Confirming Kelly's arrival, KCNA, the North's state-run news agency, said the U.S. envoy would explain "the present U.S. administration's Korea policy and its stand on the resumption of dialogue with (North Korea) and exchange views of issues of bilateral concern."

The trip, which ends Saturday, dovetails with what appears to be a concerted push by North Korean leader Kim Jong Il to improve ties with traditional adversaries that are critical to the revival of his decaying economy.

In August, North and South Korea agreed to resume work on a cross-border railway as well as other reconciliation projects. On Sept. 17, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited Pyongyang, where Kim acknowledged the abductions of 13 Japanese to help train North Korean spies.

North Korea's recent economic reforms, including plans for a walled-off, capitalist enclave in Sinuiju on the border with China, could entail a partial opening of one of the world's most secretive societies.

Many analysts say North Korean recalcitrance was matched by Bush's tough language, a sharp departure from the Clinton administration's conciliatory tone. Some suggested Washington sent Kelly partly out of concern that it was trailing its allies, South Korea and Japan, in dealings with the North.

"Kim Jong Il has enough balls in the air that if the U.S. sits this one out, it would look pretty odd," said Jonathan Pollack, an Asia-Pacific expert at the Center for Naval Warfare Studies in Newport, R.I.

In the U.S. view, Iraq and North Korea have terrorist links and are intent on covertly stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. But political, historical and geographical realities set apart the two countries, which are not allies.

China has a security treaty with North Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War in which Chinese soldiers fought U.S. troops. Russia also shares a border with North Korea, and pre-emptive strikes would likely be unacceptable to South Korea, a U.S. ally.

"If you're going to focus on Iraq, it makes sense to try to, at the very least, defer and possibly avoid confrontation in Asia," said Scott Snyder, Asia Foundation representative in South Korea.

Also, there is broad consensus that South Korean President Kim Dae-jung's "sunshine" policy of engagement, though vulnerable and oft-criticized, has eased tension with North Korea.

In Clinton's final months in office, U.S. negotiators were said to be close to a deal to curb North Korea's missile exports and development in exchange for economic compensation. However, hard issues such as verification and destruction of stockpiles were still on the table.

Shortly after Bush took office early last year, Secretary of State Colin Powell said Washington's North Korea policy would pick up where Clinton left off. He later reversed his remarks, adhering to a Bush policy that there would be no talks anytime soon.

"For people who have a sense of the internal debate within the (Bush) administration, it seems remarkable that sufficient consensus has been formed to allow for Kelly to go in the first place," Snyder said.

"There is an argument within Washington that to meet with the North Korean leadership is to give them a level of deference that they don't deserve," he said.

One possible motive for North Korea's overtures is to lock in diplomatic and economic gains before South Korea's presidential election on Dec. 19. The frontrunner is opposition leader Lee Hoi-chang, who would be expected to take a tougher line on the
North.

By Christopher Torchia