SEOUL (AFP) - US Secretary of State Colin Powell has wrapped up a three-nation tour of Asia after winning pledges from Japan, China and South Korea to press North Korea to resume stalled talks on its nuclear weapons programs.
"Clearly, everybody wants to see the next round of six-party talks get started," Powell said, referring to what he said was a common desire expressed by officials in Tokyo, Beijing and Seoul.
"This is the time to move forward and to bring this matter to a conclusion," he told reporters after meeting South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun and Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon.
"Let's get going," Powell said, adding: "We hope that in the very near future the North Koreans will see that it is in their interests to have the talks start again."
He declined to offer a timeline for when North Korea might return to the table but earlier a South Korean spokesman quoted Powell as telling Unification Minister Chung Dong-Young that he expected Pyongyang to drop its boycott of the talks after next week's US presidential elections.
Many analysts believe North Korea is waiting for the election to determine its next move, hoping for a less hardline US stance if John Kerry defeats incumbent George W. Bush for the presidency.
Powell, who has predicted a Bush victory, has dismissed suggestions that Kerry would abandon the six-party framework, which included China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the United States.
In Seoul, Powell had been seeking support for a joint strategy to get Pyongyang to return to the table unconditionally and Ban said South Korea was on board.
Ban said he stressed a need for "creative and realistic" approaches by all of the partners in the talks to lure North Korea into negotiations.
"I suggested that all countries concerned, including South Korea and the United States, make more creative and realistic proposals to bring North Korea back to the dialogue table," Ban said. "Secretary of State Powell agreed to this."
On Monday, China signalled to Powell that it would use its influence "to get the dialogue to resume as soon as possible," according to a senior US official.
A day earlier, Tokyo agreed to press Pyongyang to return to the talks during working-level meetings next month with North Korean officials to discuss the Cold War-era abduction of Japanese citizens.
Despite Powell's apparent success, North Korea showed no sign of dropping its boycott of the talks and is threatening to bolster its military deterrent to counter "hostile" US acts.
And, just hours after Powell arrived here, South Korean military units were put on their highest state of alert to search for possible North Korean infiltrators after a hole was found in a fence that separates the border.
At all of his stops, Powell rejected Pyongyang's claims of Washington's aggressive attitude and also dismissed its demands for up-front rewards for returning to the six-party talks.
In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said that the United States should show greater "flexibility" in considering concessions for the North giving up its nuclear weapons ambitions.
"We wish the US side would go further to adopt a flexible and practical attitude on the issue," Li said, according to China's Xinhua news agency.
But Powell said the United States had already shown flexibility by offering an aid-for-disarmament package at the last round of the Beijing-hosted talks in June.
After that round, North Korea refused to attend a fourth meeting in September -- citing belligerence by the United States -- and Powell complained that Pyongyang had never responded to the US offer.
Pyongyang accuses the Washington of paying only "lip service" to a peaceful settlement of the nuclear deadlock and has blasted a US-led joint naval exercise off the Japanese coast as a sign of US antagonism.
North Korea has criticised the drill, when began on Monday, as an attempt at a maritime blockade and a "serious infringement" of its sovereignty that would dim prospects for a negotiated settlement to the nuclear impasse.
10/26/2004 - 07:18 GMT - AFP