U.S. Tries To Save N. Korea Nuke Pact

The chief U.S. nuclear negotiator visited North Korea to try to salvage a derailed disarmament pact Wednesday, while a news report saying the communist nation may be restoring its nuclear test site added urgency to the mission.

Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill crossed into the North through the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone dividing the two Koreas, U.S. Embassy spokesman Aaron Tarver said.

His trip comes as Pyongyang has been growing increasingly defiant of international efforts to end its nuclear programs. The North stopped dismantling and began restoring its nuclear facilities in mid-August, and last week it ordered U.N. nuclear monitors to leave the country in violation of an international accord.

In a further sign of Pyongyang's defiance, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported Wednesday that there are indications the North has started to restore the site where it conducted its first-ever nuclear test blast in October 2006.

Yonhap cited an unidentified government official as saying smoke has been seen rising from the Punggyeri site in the country's northeast, and that North Korean authorities may have been incinerating clothes and equipment used in restoration efforts at the site.

South Korea's Defense Ministry said it could not confirm the report.

Hill said Tuesday night that his goal was to persuade North Korea's Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan to agree to Washington's demand for a verification system to account for the North's nuclear arsenal. But he acknowledged it would be a difficult task.

The North has rejected U.S. requests on verification and accused Washington of not living up to its end of the deal and removing North Korea from a list of state sponsors of terrorism. It recently reversed the process of dismantling its nuclear facilities.

"We are in a very difficult, very tough phase of negotiations," Hill told reporters after meeting with his South Korean counterpart, Kim Sook, to discuss ways to persuade the North to return to the disarmament process.

In Washington, a senior U.S. official said Hill is bringing a new face-saving proposal that would have North Korea agree to a verification program and submit it first to its Chinese allies. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because Hill has not presented the proposal.

The U.S. would then provisionally remove North Korea from the terrorism sponsors list. That would edge around the current impasse, in which the U.S. says it won't remove North Korea from the list until it signs up to the verification measures while the U.S. says North Korea must act first.

U.S. officials said they were not sure North Korea would agree to the idea and if they do, whether what they present to the Chinese would be acceptable to Washington.

Hill's trip to the capital, Pyongyang, comes amid reports that autocratic North Korean leader Kim Jong Il suffered a stroke in August, prompting concern that his prolonged illness could destabilize the Korean peninsula. North Korea denies that Kim, 66, is ill.

Kim's disappearance from the public eye coincided with an about-face on the 2007 nuclear deal painstakingly negotiated among six countries - the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan.

North Korea alarmed the world in 2006 by testing a nuclear device and a series of missiles. It then agreed to dismantle its nuclear program in exchange for energy aid and other concessions.

The regime began disabling its nuclear processing plant in Yongbyon in November, and blew up a cooling tower in June in a dramatic display of its determination to carry out the process.

Just steps away from completing the second phase of the three-part process, Pyongyang abruptly reversed course in mid-August and stopped disabling the plant.