US and North Korean negotiators will start talks today aimed at normalising diplomatic ties as part of an agreement under which Pyongyang has pledged to scrap its nuclear arms programmes for aid.
The talks at the US mission to the United Nations mark the highest-level meeting on American soil since communist North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Il sent a top envoy to Washington in 2000 in an abortive effort to improve relations.
North Korean envoy Kim Kye-gwan will meet his American counterpart, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, to begin resolving problems between two countries that have been bitter foes since the 1950-53 Korean War.
Issues to be discussed include the US designation of North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism and American trade sanctions against the North under the Trading with the Enemy Act, the State Department said.
The United States will seek North Korea's assurances that it is committed to following through on an agreement to shut down within 60 days its main nuclear facility and allow inspectors in return for 50,000 tons of fuel oil.
The New York meeting is part of the first stage in implementing the February 13th deal reached in Beijing by the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, Russia and China after three years of talks that were punctuated by a North Korean nuclear test last October.
Further steps to fully "disable" North Korea's nuclear weapons programme will see the impoverished state get another 950,000 tons of oil or other forms of aid of equivalent value.