North Korea has agreed to join a first round of six-party working level talks on his nuclear programmes in May, according to media reports today.
The lower-level talks to focus on detail rather than strategy would be the first concrete result of two rounds of high-level talks involving China, Russia, the two Koreas, the United States and Japan in Beijing in the past year on North Korea's nuclear weapons ambitions.
The breakthrough came when the reclusive Kim Jong-Il made a rare visit to Beijing this month and met Chinese President Hu Jintao to set the May 12 date, Japan's Kyodo news agency said.
Kim's trip came just days after a visit to Beijing by US Vice President Dick Cheney, who brought more evidence of North Korea's efforts to develop a nuclear force.
"There is no period set, there are no specific topics fixed," South Korean Vice Foreign Minister Lee Soo-hyuck told reporters today.
The nuclear crisis erupted in October 2002 when US officials say communist North Korea disclosed it was working on a secret programme to enrich uranium for weapons, in violation of an international agreement.
North Korea said it expected to discuss a reward for freezing its nuclear plans but any breakthrough depended on Washington.
"The DPRK side will attend this meeting to discuss the proposal 'reward for freeze'," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency. DPRK is short for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
The proposal involves the North freezing nuclear plans in return for compensation.
The two protagonists to the talks are at odds on many issues, including how to proceed on a U.S. offer to provide security assurances if North Korea agrees to the complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantling of its nuclear arms programmes.
"Everything will depend on the US attitude," the North's Foreign Ministry said. "The US attempt to while away time, insisting on its wrong assertion, would not do it good, either. The DPRK is by no means impatient."
China, host of the six-party talks, and Russia said they hoped the working-group meeting would be a success.
"We hope all parties can make efforts to make the meeting work," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan told a news conference in Beijing, confirming the May 12 date.
South Korea's Lee suggested only one working group meeting in Beijing was likely before the next round of six-way talks.
"As far as I know if North Korea wanted to have talks just once then there will be talks only once," he said.
The talks were expected to last about five days, Kyodo said.
The United States recently notified China it had accepted a May 12 date for the inaugural working group meeting, Kyodo said.