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US, N Korea in historic talks
06/03/2007 07:27 - (SA)
Edith M Lederer
New York - More than 50 years after the end of the Korean War, the United States and North Korea opened historic talks on steps to establish diplomatic relations following Pyongyang's agreement to dismantle its nuclear programme.
North Korean vice-foreign minister Kim Kye Gwan and US assistant secretary of state Christopher Hill began their first meeting on Monday evening at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York, a US official said on condition of anonymity because the talks are private.
They are to meet again on Tuesday amid rising expectations of improved US relations with a country President George W Bush called part of an "axis of evil" five years ago, along with Iran and pre-war Iraq.
This is the first US visit by Kim, North Korea's top nuclear negotiator, since the international standoff over the North's nuclear ambitions flared in late 2002.
Under an agreement reached at six-nation talks in Beijing last month on the North's nuclear programme, the United States and North Korea are supposed to open bilateral talks on establishing diplomatic ties.
The North, which tested a nuclear weapon last October, agreed at the talks to shut down its main nuclear reactor by mid-April as a step toward abandoning its nuclear programme in exchange for aid.
US state department spokesperson Sean McCormack cautioned that this week's initial meetings would focus on setting the agenda for the US-North Korea working group led by Kim and Hill, the top American nuclear negotiator.
"I think that he (Hill) will talk to them about how the process might proceed regarding normalisation," McCormack said, including taking North Korea off the US list of state sponsors of terrorism and opening the way for a normal trading relationship with the US for the first time.
- AP
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