U.S. Still Hopes to Revive Talks With North Korea, Rice Says

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice insisted Sunday that the U.S. had not given up hope of reviving six-nation talks on North Korea’s nuclear program, amid signs that Pyongyang might be interested in returning to the bargaining table.

Speaking to reporters a day after a top U.S. Defense official said the Bush administration would decide within weeks whether to abandon the talks, Rice said U.S. officials “still believe there is life left” in the negotiations that have been stalled for nearly a year.

The government in Pyongyang has refused to partake in talks since last June, often citing “hostile” U.S. rhetoric as a barrier. But in recent days North Korea has made some unusually positive comments about the U.S., and reportedly placed a phone call to American officials.

According to the Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shimbun, North Korean diplomats initiated a phone conversation with their American counterparts in recent days. The call would be the first direct contact since a back-channel meeting in New York on May 13, which involved the North’s mission to the United Nations, its only diplomatic presence in the United States.

Although the exact timing of the phone call was not stated, it may have coincided with a rare compliment for President Bush on Friday from a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman.

The spokesman welcomed Bush’s polite reference to the North Korean leader as “Mr. Kim Jong Il” in remarks the president made Tuesday.

“If Bush’s remarks put an end to the scramble between the hawkish group and the moderate group in the U.S., which has thrown the Korean policy into a state of confusion, it would help create an atmosphere of the six-party talks,” the spokesman was quoted saying by Pyongyang’s official news service.

One of North Korea’s conditions to return to the talks is an end to what it considers insulting language by the Bush administration about Kim. Previously, Bush referred to Kim as a “tyrant” and “dangerous person.” Pyongyang responded by calling Bush a “war maniac” and “Hitler Jr.”

South Korean officials in recent days have expressed more optimism about the possibility of diplomacy. South Korea has been pushing hard for direct contacts between the United States and North Korea. A senior South Korean official, who met recently with North Korean counterparts, said he believed that Pyongyang had a “very favorable assessment” of the May 13 contact in New York.

“I personally believe that we are approaching a turning point and that North Korea will come back to the six-party talks,” the South Korean official, who asked not to be quoted by name, said last week at a meeting of foreign journalists.

He said that Bush’s use of “Mr.” in referring to Kim would be viewed as a “very warm gesture” in the nuances of North Korean-U.S. relations.

Some experts believe that the Bush administration has set the end of June as a deadline to revive the multinational negotiations, but Donald Hellmann, a professor at the University of Washington, said it would be “premature to write off the six-party talks.”

Hellmann, who has been active in pushing for a resumption of the diplomatic process, said Sunday that a major stumbling block has been continued rifts within the Bush administration about how to deal with North Korea.

“It is not only Pyongyang. American behavior is a critical factor in the resumption of the talks,” he said.

“I would be very surprised that, if the incentives were dangled correctly, that North Korea would not come back.”

It was unclear Sunday whether the discrepancy between Rice’s comments on the six-nation talks and the Defense official’s comments a day earlier represented a rift within the administration, or perhaps was an effort to keep pressure on North Korea while not offending U.S. allies who would expect to be consulted about abandoning the negotiations.

South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun is to visit President Bush in Washington on Friday.

The official who briefed reporters Saturday in Singapore on a trip with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said the U.S. would consider in “the June-July period” taking the issue of North Korea’s nuclear program to the United Nations.

Rice, who spoke to reporters on her plane en route to a meeting of the Organization of American States in Fort Lauderdale, said the administration would weigh whether to try to get the U.N. Security Council to consider sanctions on North Korea. But, she said, “I don’t put timelines on things.” U.S. officials organized the international talks to bring pressure on the North Korean government from its neighbors -- China, Japan, South Korea and Russia. But U.S. officials have been frustrated that China, the North’s major trading partner, has not tried to influence Pyongyang as much as the U.S. had hoped.

“We’ve got to do a far better job of getting the Chinese to put the kind of pressure -- they’re the ones that are the suppliers to North Korea,” Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Sunday on CNN’s “Late Edition.”

“Without China’s support, North Korea couldn’t survive more than several months.”

As U.S. frustration with the North’s refusal to return to the talks has mounted, Washington has taken several steps that appeared aimed at further isolating the Pyongyang regime.

The Pentagon last month canceled a program to recover the remains of American servicemen missing in North Korea since the Korean War, citing safety concerns.

The U.S. had paid North Korea to allow the program, so the cancellation meant a loss of funds for the North Korean military.

The Pentagon also recently sent Stealth fighters to South Korea for what it said was a routine military exercise.

North Korea denounced both steps as hostile moves.

If the U.S. decides to abandon the talks and seek action on North Korea by the United Nations Security Council, there is no guarantee such a move would yield greater results.

China or Russia, which have veto power on the council, may be reluctant to endorse sanctions or other tough measures on Pyongyang.

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Richter reported from Fort Lauderdale and Demick from Seoul.