US/NORTH KOREA: The United States spoke one-on-one with North Korea on the sidelines of six-nation talks this week to end the nuclear stand-off on the Korean peninsula, prompting cautious optimism that the thorny talks might make progress. Clifford Coonan reports from Beijing.
"The United States and North Korea were in consultations for more than two hours," said Cho Tae-yong, deputy chief of South Korea's delegation to the talks in the Chinese capital.
There was no information about the exact agenda of the talks between the US and North Korea. One South Korean official said the US and North Korean proposals were still miles apart but could still act as a "foundation for consultations".
There were signs of compromise emerging from the North Korean camp too.
Diplomats said North Korea's chief negotiator, Kim Kye-gwan, proposed to conditionally freeze the secretive Stalinist state's plutonium-based nuclear weapons programme "in a verifiable way".
This would involve ceasing the operations of its main nuclear complex at Yongbyon and allowing inspections.
Mr Kim stressed the proposed freeze would be a "first step" towards the scrapping of the nuclear development programme and would come with "verification through outside inspections".
The crisis over Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions has been going on since 2002, when Washington said North Korea was working on a secret programme to enrich uranium for weapons, violating an international agreement.
Tentative signs of a possible easing of tensions came as athletes from the rival Koreas said they would march together behind a unification flag during the opening and closing ceremonies of August's Olympic Games in Athens.
However, despite the good omens, the talks again risk becoming bogged down in semantics. Pyongyang is adamant that the US must give up its demand for a complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement of North Korea's nuclear programme and provide aid and security assurances first.
The United States has reportedly tabled a seven-page offer, which gives North Korea three months to accept the US incentives in exchange for scrapping its nuclear plans.
Washington's offer also contains a proposal to lift economic sanctions against North Korea and remove the communist country from its list of terrorism-sponsors.
The slightly milder approach by Washington is seen as a policy shift for the Bush administration, which had previously insisted on a "complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantling" of North Korea's nuclear programme before any aid was forthcoming.
Analysts say North Korea remains unlikely to accept a US offer of conditional aid and security guarantees because the terms were still not sweet enough.