Six-party meetings resume after year

BEIJING – Six-nation talks on North Korea’s nuclear program resumed today for the first time in more than a year, a test of whether the secretive communist regime is willing to negotiate after its surprise atomic test rattled the region this fall.

Head Chinese delegate Wu Dawei formally declared the talks open at a Chinese state guest-house in Beijing, calling on envoys to discuss implementation of a September 2005 agreement in which North Korea pledged to abandon its nuclear program in exchange for security guarantees and aid.

“After hearing each country’s opening speech – especially North Korea’s opening speech – we will be able to tell where the six-party talks will go,” South Korean nuclear envoy Chun Yung-woo told reporters today before the talks.

North Korea agreed to return to the six-nation negotiations just weeks after its Oct. 9 nuclear test, saying it wanted to discuss U.S. financial restrictions against a Macau bank where the regime held accounts.

That issue will be addressed in separate U.S.-North Korean meetings, but they were delayed until Tuesday because the North Korean delegates responsible for those talks had yet to arrive, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported.

The United States has sought to line up support against Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions by enlisting its neighbors – including China, Japan, Russia and South Korea – in the discussions.

North Korea’s test of a low-yield nuclear device seemed to stiffen the will of other countries – particularly China – to persuade it to disarm.

Beijing joined a unanimous U.N. Security Council resolution sanctioning North Korea for its nuclear test, and China brought Pyongyang and Washington together just a few weeks later to agree to resume nuclear discussions.

Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, the U.S. nuclear envoy, says the main task now is to implement the agreement from September 2005 – the only accord negotiators have reached – when North Korea promised to abandon its nuclear program in exchange for security guarantees and aid. The alternative, he says, is sanctions.