US and North Korea resume nuclear programme talks

The discussions - the first since the death of the North's long time leader Kim Jong-il - could provide signs of whether North Korea's new government will restart six-nation talks.

BEIJING // A US nuclear envoy said he held substantive talks with North Korea on dismantling Pyongyang's nuclear programmes in return for aid and would continue the negotiations into second day.

The discussions - the first since the death of the North's long time leader Kim Jong-il - could provide signs of whether North Korea's new government is ready to agree to steps demanded by Washington and Pyongyang's neighbours to restart broader international disarmament talks.

Kim's death in December upended a deal between the United States and North Korea where Pyongyang would have suspended its uranium enrichment in return for food aid and diplomatic concessions from Washington, as a precursor to restarting the broader talks. The meetings in Beijing may provide a glimpse of 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," US envoy Glyn Davies said after meeting his counterpart, Kim Kye-gwan, for almost six hours over two sessions, first at the North Korean Embassy and then at the US Embassy.

Mr Davies would not provide any other details, saying only that nutritional aid was discussed.

The talks in Beijing, the third round since July, are aimed at restarting wider 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.

Additional steps may still be needed before a resumption of the six-nation talks. The North may first request food shipments, while the US and its allies want assurances Pyongyang is committed to making progress on past nuclear commitments.

The US has also said that better ties between North Korea and US 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.

The six-nation talks, once restarted, would be aimed at dismantling North Korea's remaining nuclear programmes in exchange for what would likely involve even greater donations of aid.

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 programme.

As the envoys began their talks, North Korea's state media criticised 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.

"It is illogical to discuss the 'nuclear security' issue in South Korea, the US nuclear advance base and a hotbed of nuclear war," the North's official Korean Central News Agency said in a commentary.