Diplomats from the US, China, North Korea and South Korea gathered here early yesterday for a new round of talks aimed at paving the way for formal negotiations toward a Korean peace treaty.
The North Korean Vice-Foreign Minister, Mr Kim Gye-Gwan, the South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister, Mr Song Young-Shik, the US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Mr Charles Kartman, and the Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister, Mr Chen Jian, arrived at Columbia University, site of the talks, just before 10 a.m.
"Did you bring a present for me?" Mr Song asked Mr Kim once the delegates had assembled in the conference room. Mr Kim's response to the question was inaudible, but he told his South Korean counterpart: "I don't want these talks to be a premature baby."
"I think you should do your best to produce a big baby," Mr Song jovially shot back. As the four delegates moved into position for a photograph, Mr Kim, smiling, rebuffed Mr Chen's attempt to pose him in the centre.
Mr Kartman earlier said he was hopeful that the four could reach agreement on an agenda for formal peace talks, a topic on which they disagreed at a first round of preparatory talks in early August.
"Sure, I expect an agreement," Mr Kartman said as he arrived. "I'm always optimistic."
"Why not? We'll keep on working," said Mr Chen. The negotiations were due to continue today but could take longer. "If there's some need to make them go longer, we'll do what we need to do," said one US official.
For the moment, however, he said, Washington hoped to resolve the outstanding issues quickly and move on six weeks later to formal talks in Geneva.
The talks here, first proposed by South Korea and the US in April 1996, aim ultimately to replace the armistice that brought fighting in the 1950-1953 Korean War to a halt. The armistice was meant as a stopgap measure to be followed with a formal peace treaty, but that never happened.
US and South Korean diplomats are hopeful that North Korea, its economy failing and 22 million people sorely short of food following several poor harvests and years of mismanagement, might just be hungry enough to make genuine moves toward peace.
In a timely move, Washington announced on Wednesday it had offered to send a US team of experts to North Korea to evaluate the famine-stricken nation's food needs.
Reuter reports from Kuala Lumpur:
North Korea, hit by drought, tidal waves and floods, faces a shortage of 1.9 million tonnes of grain over the next year, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation said yesterday.
"We have estimated the deficit in grains at 1.9 million tonnes," Mr Jacques Diouf, director-general of the FAO, said after his return from a three-day fact-finding mission to North Korea. It was the UN's first assessment of North Korea's food problem.
"The situation is very difficult. We expect that [700,000 tonnes] should be provided through commercial means, but there would still be a deficit of 1.2 million tonnes of grains, which would require international assistance," he said, referring to needs over the next 12 months.
Mr Diouf declined to comment on how many North Koreans might have starved to death because of the famine.
The US aid agency World Vision said on Tuesday that between 500,000 and two million people have died from starvation, though other North Korea experts doubt the figure is that high.