N. Korea presses U.S. on bilateral talks

Repeating an earlier offer, the hardline communist state said successful bilateral talks could lead to a resumption of stalled six-nation nuclear disarmament negotiations.

The foreign ministry's comments came as the North's deputy nuclear negotiator, Ri Gun, wrapped up a U.S. visit during which he held rare talks with Sung Kim, special U.S. envoy to the six-party forum.

The North did not elaborate on its threat to “go its own way.” But it had vowed to restart its plutonium-producing plants after quitting the six-party forum in April. In May it staged a second atomic weapons test.

“North Korea is now telling the U.S. that it will further bolster its nuclear deterrent unless Washington comes out early for bilateral talks,” Professor Koh Yu-Hwan, of South Korea's Dongguk University, told AFP.

After months of bellicose moves including a series of missile tests, the North has lately been making peace overtures and has invited the U.S. special envoy on North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, to visit Pyongyang.

In early October, leader Kim Jong-Il told Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao his country was ready to return to six-party negotiations, but only after it has talked directly to the United States to improve “hostile relations.”

“As the DPRK (North Korea) was magnanimous enough to clarify the stand that it is possible to hold multilateral talks including the six-party talks depending on the talks with the U.S., now is the U.S.' turn,” a foreign ministry spokesman told Pyongyang's official news agency.

“If the U.S. is not ready to sit at a negotiating table with the DPRK, it will go its own way.”

The North has long sought direct talks with the United States, and is unenthusiastic about the multilateral framework which also involves South Korea, China, Russia and Japan.

Washington says it is open to bilateral talks but these would be limited to bringing Pyongyang back to the six-party framework. It says it has made no decision on any visit by Bosworth.

The North's spokesman played down Ri Gun's meeting in New York, saying it was not a preliminary to bilateral talks.

He reiterated the country's stance that it was forced to develop a nuclear deterrent to counter U.S. hostility.

“If the hostile relations between the DPRK and the U.S. are settled and confidence is built between them, there will be meaningful progress in realizing the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.”

The North complained it had suffered a “huge economic loss” from nuclear disarmament deals, firstly with the United States in 1994 and then in 2005 and 2007 with all other members of the six-party talks.

It said it never received the two light-water reactors promised in 1994 in return for shutting down the plutonium-producing Yongbyon complex.

That deal collapsed in 2002 when the United States accused the North of operating a secret bomb-making program based on enriched uranium, and the light-water reactors were never completed.

The North's spokesman also complained that his country had received little economic reward in return for the latest shutdown of Yongbyon in 2007 as part of a six-party deal.

The North received some 745,000 tons of heavy oil worth around 310 million dollars before the deal stalled, according to a South Korean legislator citing a foreign ministry report in October.

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