BEIJING, Feb 22 (AFP) - North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il has said his country is willing to return to nuclear disarmament talks, following an earlier threat to withdraw from negotiations, Chinese state media said Tuesday.
Barely two weeks after the North announced in an official statement that it had nuclear weapons and was snubbing the talks indefinitely, Kim told Chinese envoy Wang Jiarui he remained committed to a nuclear-free Korean peninsula.
"If the conditions for the fourth round of six-party talks are met, the DPRK (North Korea) will return to the negotiating table at any time," Kim was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency, without specifying what the conditions were.
Kim insisted that North Korea did not oppose the talks and had not withdrawn from them, and called on the United States to "show trustworthy sincerity."
"The DPRK's stance on a nuclear-free Korean peninsula and peaceful settlement of the issue through dialogue remain unchanged," he said.
Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura said in Tokyo he was baffled by the mixed signals and called on Pyongyang to "return to the talks without asking for conditions".
He said Japan was yet to confirm the remarks attributed to Kim and would be puzzled if the report was accurate.
"If things are as the (Chinese) report says, then why did North Korea issue the foreign ministry statement (on February 10)? It is a truly strange development," Machimura said.
Wang arrived back in Beijing Tuesday after delivering a verbal message to the reclusive Kim from President Hu Jintao during a meeting Monday.
Hu told his counterpart "it is in the fundamental interests of the Chinese and DPRK sides to maintain the stand of realizing the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula," the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.
The Chinese president said it was crucial to protect "peace and stability, settle the nuclear issue and clear the Korean side of its reasonable concerns through the six-party talks."
As well as Kim, Wang met North Korea's number two and ceremonial head of state Kim Yong-Nam and other top officials, according to state media.
He smiled and waved to waiting journalists at Beijing Capital International Airport on his arrival but declined comment.
The United States and North Korea have been locked in a stand-off since October 2002 when Washington accused Pyongyang of operating a secret program based on highly-enriched uranium, violating a 1994 arms control agreement.
North Korea denied the allegations. However it responded by expelling UN nuclear inspectors, re-starting a mothballed nuclear reactor and extracting weapons-grade plutonium from spent fuel rods.
China has brokered three rounds of talks with North Korea, the United States, South Korea, Japan and Russia to resolve the issue.
However, North Korea snubbed a fourth round last September, citing Washington's "hostile policy" and accusing it of trying to bring down its government.
Analysts said China was unlikely to have offered Kim any financial inducements, but instead would have made clear that sanctions by some countries were a stark reality.
"I suspect that China held out the prospect that some of the powers might take limited sanctions, that Japan and South Korea are serious and the situation would deteriorate," said Brian Bridges, a North Korea expert at Lingnan University in Hong Kong.
"I suspect China also passed the message on that the US will not respond with concessions. They won't do anything until they get back to the negotiating table."
Analysts said the likely outcome would be a return to the six-party format during which the United States and North Korea would hold bilateral discussions.
A flurry of diplomacy preceded Wang's trip with the United States' new envoy to the talks Christopher Hill visiting Beijing in an attempt to help North Korea overcome its "big mistake".
The rhetoric was stepped up when the CIA said North Korea also has active biological and chemical weapons programs and could resume missile tests soon.
02/22/2005 05:17 GMT - AFP