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Mark Ralston / AFP - Getty Images
US envoy Glyn Davies speaks to reporters after the first day of bilateral talks with North Korea in Beijing, China, on Thursday.
BEIJING -- The United States and North Korea resumed talks Thursday delayed by the death of North Korea's longtime leader Kim Jong Il two months ago, with the U.S. envoy saying he and his counterpart covered U.S. food aid and other topics.
The discussions — the first since Kim's death — are to continue Friday and could signal whether North Korea's new government is ready to agree to steps demanded by Washington and Pyongyang's neighbors to restart broader international disarmament talks, which are meant to provide aid and diplomatic concessions in return for the North abandoning its nuclear weapons programs.
Kim's Dec. 17 death upended a deal between the United States and North Korea where Pyongyang would have suspended its uranium enrichment in return for food aid from Washington. The meetings in Beijing may partly reveal North Korea's goals under new leader Kim Jong Un, who has vowed to follow his father's policies.
"The talks today were substantive and serious and we covered quite a number of issues," U.S. envoy Glyn Davies told reporters after meeting his counterpart Kim Kye Gwan for almost six hours over two sessions, first at the North Korean Embassy and then at the U.S. Embassy. "We'll pick up again tomorrow and see if we can't make a little bit of progress."
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Davies would not provide other details, saying only that nutritional aid was discussed.
The U.S. envoy added that he would also have dinner with the North Korean officials. "We are still in mid-negotiations," he said.
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Kim said he found it "positive" that the two sides talked with "serious attitudes," South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported. Kim wouldn't elaborate when asked if progress was made.
The talks in Beijing, the third round since July, are aimed at restarting six-nation nuclear disarmament negotiations that also involve China, Japan, Russia and South Korea. Pyongyang walked away from those talks in 2009 and later exploded its second nuclear device.
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Additional steps may still be needed before a resumption of the six-nation talks. The North may first request food shipments, while the U.S. and its allies want assurances Pyongyang is committed to making progress on past nuclear commitments.
The United States has also said that better ties between North Korea and U.S. ally South Korea are crucial. North Korea has rejected South Korean offers to talk in recent weeks, and animosity between the rivals still lingers from violence in 2010: a North Korean artillery attack in November killed four South Koreans on a front-line island, and Seoul blames North Korea for the sinking of a warship that killed 46 sailors earlier that year. Pyongyang denies sinking the ship and says a South Korean live-fire drill provoked the artillery attack.
Packages containing food were sent from South Korea to North Korea ahead of the Lunar New Year. Msnbc.com's Dara Brown reports.
The six-nation talks, once restarted, would be aimed at dismantling North Korea's remaining nuclear programs in exchange for what would likely involve even greater donations of aid.
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Worries about North Korea's nuclear capability took on renewed urgency in November 2010 when the country disclosed a uranium enrichment facility that could give it a second route to manufacture nuclear weapons, in addition to its existing plutonium-based program.
As the envoys talked in Beijing, North Korea's state media criticized next month's Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, which is expected to draw dozens of world leaders, including President Barack Obama, to discuss nuclear terrorism and safety.
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"It is illogical to discuss the 'nuclear security' issue in South Korea, the U.S. nuclear advance base and a hotbed of nuclear war," the North's official Korean Central News Agency said in a commentary Thursday.
Meanwhile, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak told a news conference in Seoul on Wednesday that his government was ready to talk with the North with an "open heart" if Pyongyang was also willing to be sincere.
Lee said Pyongyang faced a "good opportunity" to change its course, apparently referring to the recent change in leadership.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
Leave a Comment:
Oh job security is a lock for the governments wishful thinkers. Or is that a crock?
this is after the big threat they made to south korea of totalwar and yet we negociate with this nation only to give them stuff for what this is same old game and i think obama wants big diplmatic victory for elections so badly that this will only explode in his face
So is it just me, or does this new dictator look more like Kim Jong Fat instead of Kim Jong Un?
Maybe it's just the uniform is too tight around his neck? But here's to hoping his vinegar-to-water ratio is less than his predecessor's.
Yes and Santa Claus is real along with the Sugar Plum fairy..... ridiculous.
We already paid for that "abandon nuclear program" thing. Still waiting for that to be delivered.
The difference betweern Iran and NK nuke program, with Iran its very personal and we are like an angry dog who wants to just bite first. With NK we dont want to act like an angry dog but been a cat will do for now.
The difference between Iran and NK? Iran is a muslims country and that s a direct threat to Israel, North K. is not a Muslim country and they are not a direct threat to Israel.
Israel will do anything to stop Iran from becoming a powerful nation with Nukes.
Peaceful talking is better than not talking.
Didn't we do this once before......send them the food aid first....then they walked away from the negotiating table. And now they are back again...wanting the aid first. Someone correct me if I am wrong
did obama apologize to them as well???
This will be the first real diplomatic outing for the new "leader." We will find out a lot about what, if anything, has changed in the North Korean political philosophy.
One can figure that Kim is looking at Myanmar and its seemingly valid attempts at political reforms as well as looking at Iran and Syria and seeing what those leaders are having to do to hold onto power. I doubt that Kim will relinquish any power, especially since his grasp on power could well be tenuous.
One interesting thing is that the South Koreans are no longer very interested in reunification such as happened with Germany. They have seen how the German economy struggled to incorporate the poorly educated and poorly trained East German workers and its rusting and heavily polluting industry. But that would be only a drop in the bucket compared to a Korean Reunification. For example, malnutrition has been so widespread and so long that the average North Korean is a full 15IQ points below the average South Korean where just 50 years ago, they would have been indistinguishable. North Korea not only has no significant industry or trade, it has no workers who can be expected to work in new industries without 20-30 years of training. If Korea were reunified tomorrow, the resulting country would be instantly bankrupt and an international basket case unable to provide for all its citizens.
Without reunification as a goal, any diplomatic initiatives with North Korea are left without anything to work towards.
give them the food ,feed the people,get rid of their nukes,flatten the cespool. Simple. OK thats North Korea dealt with. dito for venezuala.then send Ai,rock my dinner jacket(Iran) a note and ask if he needs some food,or perhaps some shampoo or clearasil(he definetly needs the second two).when he responds, in arrogant tones invite him to the U.N. ,when he arrives pop a cap in his ass and let Israel begin the innevitable. you see they believe so strongly in an eye for an eye, lets blind them :).tired of the little putrid sh**holes stiring up crap.PLAY NICE or lose your ball. Simple
Ha, ha, ha! Sure...right!
Obama and members of his regime are so naive. This is the way it always goes, N.Korea makes a bunch of empty promises they have no intentions of keeping and the stupid weenies in the U.S. State Dept. still give them all the food, oil, etc. they asked for. N. Korea must've been excited when Obama got elected because that meant they could jerk us around some more with absolutely no repercussions.
This has been going on for a hell of a lot longer than Obama and his so called regime, idiot!!! dont you just hate it when idiots open mouth before engaging their brains!
This is nothing more than has been going on for years and years. N.K. rattles the sword of nukes, U.S. responds with fuel oil, food, etc,etc. This will never change, the North has it too good! The leaders get it all, the people starve and fawn at his feet. Jong un has vowed to follow his fathers policies. Of course he has, why not? He gets everything. This would be comical except for the fact of starving his people. I am 53 and this has been going on since the 80.s. When Russia backed away from N.K. as its sole benneficiary, the saber started to rattle. China refused to help them with everything. So, the good ole U.S.A. stepped up. We are about the only ones that do. And that is because we want to be in S.K., why, i dont know any more? It used to be a stratigic location. Is it now? I dont know? But, you might as well get used to this crap with N.K., it will be going on indefinately!!!
A positive sign was that the North Korean negotiator peed on Davies' leg and told him it was raining.
nobody gives us any free aid just because we got nuclear bombs! and we got more! i know we got jackasses in washington ,but they would have to be huge ones at that if they gave them aid for nothing ,just for being blackmailed!
however after due negotiations and some fair deals could be reached ,some of the work currently given to china could be sent instead to north korea so that they through their earnings could buy their food or other needed stuff by themselves.
North Korea is such a closed society that it's difficult to get reliable information on what is really happening and to decipher their rhetoric and hot air. It's highly unlikely that their poliical philosophy will have changed much because Kim does not have absolute power. He shares it with the old guard army and perhaps with some higher ups in the communist party. For now, it's best to to put offers of aid on the table and go from there. Obviously, the north likes to beat around the bush. This is one of the times where give diplomacy a chance is the order of the day.