N. Korea, in Abrupt Shift, Offers Plan to Restart U.S. Talks : Diplomacy: Pyongyang delivers compromise through ex-President Carter. Regime would freeze nuclear program, allow inspectors to stay. Clinton is hopeful but cautious.

North Korea abruptly offered a compromise Thursday in its dispute with the United States over its nuclear facilities and President Clinton said it might prove acceptable--raising the possibility of a breakthrough in what has been an escalating confrontation.

The North Korean proposal, delivered through former President Jimmy Carter, asks for a resumption of broad, high-level political and economic talks with the United States in return for Pyongyang freezing its nuclear program and allowing international inspectors to stay in the country.

Clinton, who spoke to reporters late Thursday after meeting with his top national security advisers, said Washington would seek to confirm details of the offer through diplomatic channels in the next few days and might accept it if it proves genuine.

“If today’s developments mean that North Korea is genuinely and verifiably prepared to freeze its nuclear program while talks go on . . . , then we would be willing to resume high-level talks,” the President said. “We will just have to see,” he added later.

But U.S. officials made it clear that the United States also would insist on conditions of its own, including that Pyongyang stop reprocessing its spent fuel rods and refueling its current reactor and that it cooperate fully with international inspectors.

Officials said Clinton and his advisers discussed options for strengthening U.S. military capability in and around South Korea but reached no final decisions. They said that possibilities included sending radar-evading Stealth bombers to South Korea.

It was not immediately clear whether the two sides would be able to agree on specifics of a compromise. Despite the initial euphoria over the North Korean proposal, the offer essentially would return the situation to where it was last spring, before Pyongyang blocked inspections of its nuclear plant.

But officials suggested that Pyongyang’s gesture Thursday might provide a face-saving way for both sides to ease tensions and possibly avert a fight over imposition of U.N. economic sanctions against North Korea, now being considered by the Security Council.

Robert L. Gallucci, assistant secretary of state for political affairs, said the Clinton Administration would begin pursuing the North Korean proposal through U.N. diplomatic channels in New York today.

“Can it--will it--take the steam out of sanctions?” Clinton asked rhetorically, referring to the U.S. proposal for an economic embargo. “It depends on the facts . . . ,” he said. “And that is what we will attempt to determine over the next several hours.”

Clinton’s unexpected appearance before reporters Thursday reflected the belief of his senior foreign policy advisers that he should explain the situation on the Korean peninsula and the nation’s stake in it to the American public. Advisers had grown increasingly concerned that reports on the international showdown over North Korea’s suspected nuclear weapons program had alarmed Americans without clearly informing them of the nature of the threat and how the Administration was responding.

Administration officials said that, as a result, the President would make more public appearances to enunciate his foreign policy in coming weeks.

The latest developments began in an initial meeting between Carter and North Korean leader Kim Il Sung. The former President is visiting Pyongyang ostensibly as a private citizen, at the request of the North Korean government.

A few minutes after the session, Carter called the White House to outline what he had been told and described the basic elements of the proposal in an interview on Cable News Network, which had been permitted to follow the former President into North Korea.

Clinton, who on Wednesday had been urging the imposition of a series of gradual sanctions on Pyongyang, huddled with top foreign policy advisers Thursday as White House officials tried to fend off questions about how the Administration would respond.

Finally, in the evening, Gallucci delivered the Administration’s formal reply, clearly hoping to strike a balance between being responsive to the North Korean proposal and being prudent--even wary--about how genuine it might be.

U.S. officials said Washington still intends to push its sanctions proposal at the United Nations, at least until it is certain of the details of the North Korean offer.

Regarding U.S. military capability in the region, Clinton said the United States “will do whatever is necessary” to reinforce security for 37,000 American troops helping South Korea protect its border with the North.

As described by Carter in his television appearance, the North Korean offer contains these major elements:

* Pyongyang wants the United States to resume plans for a third round of high-level talks with North Korean officials on a broad range of political and economic issues, including substantial aid and closer diplomatic ties--possibly ending in full-fledged recognition.

* It wants stronger U.S. pressure in negotiations with South Korea on achieving a “denuclearized Korean peninsula”--a stated goal of both sides that the North Koreans say the South has not pursued genuinely.

* North Korea wants help in replacing its two old-style graphite-moderated nuclear reactors--which routinely produce material that can be converted into weapons-grade plutonium--with light-water reactors that are not associated with such byproducts.

* In return, Pyongyang would abandon its earlier plans to expel two inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, which it announced earlier this week, and will freeze construction on a second reactor that could be used to reprocess spent nuclear fuel.

There also were some reports that North Korea’s Kim had asked for direct contact with Clinton but U.S. officials suggested that no such session would be possible until further progress is made on broader talks.

The United States had offered Pyongyang virtually everything on its list before the North Koreans began rejecting the atomic agency’s inspection requirements.

Carter was to have another round of talks with Kim today.

Meanwhile, Russia, apparently miffed because it did not believe it had been consulted adequately by the Administration on the proposed sanctions, said it would refuse to support the measure in the Security Council, at least for now.

But Foreign Minister Andrei V. Kozyrev, who complained about the United States to reporters, did not say whether Moscow would veto the sanctions resolution. He said he hopes to discuss the proposal soon with Secretary of State Warren Christopher.

Times staff writers John M. Broder in Washington, Sam Jameson in Tokyo and Richard Boudreaux in Moscow contributed to this report.