North Korea Nuke Talks Could Resume Later This Month

WASHINGTON, Jan. 5, 2007— -- Talks aimed at persuading North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons could reconvene later this month, State Department officials said today.

Spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters that there are indications that the six-party talks, which include the United States, the two Koreas, Russia, China and Japan, could restart with a renewed aim to implement a September 2005 agreement that outlined a path for North Korea to give up its nuclear program while providing incentives for it do so.

McCormack said "it's time to see if they're ready to take steps toward denuclearization."

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, speaking to reporters after meeting with South Korea Foreign Minister Song Min-Soon, said that talks would resume "when we think that there is some prospect of success." Rice did not specify a date for the resumption of negotiations.

The last round of the talks, the first since North Korea tested a nuclear weapon on Oct. 9, ended just before Christmas.

"We didn't make the progress we would've liked," Rice admitted today.

In the opening session of those talks, both sides came out strongly defending their opposite positions. The North Koreans staunchly defended their status as a nuclear power and demanded that they be treated as such. The other parties in the talks, led by the Americans, insisted that Pyongyang give up its nuclear ambitions and freeze its enrichment programs.

McCormack said today that the United States hopes to move past that impasse when talks resume.

Separate talks on the financial restrictions placed on North Korean accounts in the Macau-based Banco Delta Asia took place in Beijing alongside the six-party talks last December, but broke off after just two days of discussions. McCormack said today that those discussions could also resume soon as well, this time in New York.

Neither McCormack nor Rice would comment on an ABC News report yesterday that North Korea is preparing for another nuclear weapons test, saying that they could not comment on intelligence matters.