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U.S., N. Korea Call Negotiations Over Nuclear Standoff Productive : Asia: But death of Pyongyang’s leader casts shadow over first formal talks in more than a year.

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

The United States and North Korea opened negotiations Friday aimed at settling the dispute over Pyongyang’s nuclear program, with both sides calling the first day’s talks productive.

That the two sides returned to the bargaining table is itself a milestone of sorts. These are the first formal negotiations between the United States and North Korea in more than a year.

But only 20 hours after the talks began, the death of North Korean President Kim Il Sung was reported, and Pyongyang suspended the talks, at least temporarily, the North Korean mission announced today.

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A mission spokesman said he did not know when the talks would resume.

A member of the U.S. delegation said early today, “It’s not clear whether the postponement will be just for a few days of mourning or for a longer period.”

Joe Bermudez, a close observer of the Kim regime and an author of books on the North Korean military, said in an interview in Washington that he thinks the president’s death will not derail the Geneva talks.

“The objectives of North Korean foreign policy probably will not change in the short term,” Bermudez said.

For more than a year, North Korea has repeatedly delayed or defied efforts by the International Atomic Energy Agency to carry out thorough inspections of its nuclear facilities at Yongbyon; the United States, in turn, has talked of organizing international sanctions against Pyongyang.

Early Friday morning, the chief U.S. delegate, Robert L. Gallucci, who is assistant secretary of state, and a team of American officials drove into North Korea’s mission to the United Nations here to shake hands with North Korea’s Kang and several aides. The two teams then sat down for seven hours of talks.

“In my view, there is a great probability that in the days ahead, we can try to get together on ways to narrow down our differences on the nuclear issue,” Kang had told reporters at the end of the day. “Both sides want to resolve the nuclear issue through dialogue and by peaceful means.”

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Before the reports of Kim’s death, U.S. officials had cautioned that they do not expect any concrete results, good or bad, from the talks for about a week. But Gallucci too Friday night described the beginning of the negotiations as productive and “useful.”

Stopping Pyongyang’s nuclear program is now such a high priority for the United States and its allies that North Korea was the first item on the agenda when President Clinton met Friday with Japan’s new Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama in Naples, Italy, site of the economic summit of the world’s leading industrialized nations.

After their meeting, Murayama--who later fell ill and was briefly hospitalized for diarrhea, dehydration and fatigue--praised “the tenacious efforts of the United States” in dealing with North Korea; Clinton said he was pleased with Murayama’s assurances of the “continuity of Japanese foreign policy.”

The Clinton Administration has offered to move toward gradual diplomatic recognition of North Korea and to arrange help for its economy, if Pyongyang will halt and eventually abandon its nuclear program.

The United States is particularly eager to work out some solution for the disposal of fuel, recently removed from the reactor at Yongbyon. The fuel could be reprocessed into enough weapons-grade plutonium to make five or six nuclear weapons by the end of this year. The CIA believes North Korea already has enough material for one or two nuclear bombs. “Clearly, the nuclear issue is the central issue (in the talks),” Gallucci said Friday night. “I think everybody understands that.”

Kang said that, in the first day’s discussions, “both sides have identified that there is much in common. At the same time . . . there are also many points on which the two sides differ very much.”

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In the days leading up to the talks, American officials have sketched out a scenario under which the United States and North Korea might agree to take small, gradual steps, so each side would gain confidence in the other.

For example, the United States might agree to higher-level diplomatic contacts with North Korea or to opening of liaison offices in Washington and Pyongyang, if North Korea continues its freeze on its nuclear program and begins to take steps to dismantle it.

“We will move with them,” explained a senior U.S. official this week. He said the American team was envisioning an approach in which the United States and North Korea might make agreed-on concessions at the same time, to avoid endless arguments over who should act first.

But no one on the American side knows yet whether these ideas are acceptable to the North Koreans--indeed, whether they are prepared to make any concessions at all on their nuclear program, beyond the current round of talks.

If the talks fail, Administration officials say they will revive now-suspended efforts to obtain a formal United Nations resolution for economic sanctions against North Korea. And there were hints Friday that the United States is still planning for sanctions by shoring up the support of allies.

After Clinton met with Murayama in Naples, a senior Administration official said the Japanese prime minister “made clear that they would support whatever action was required at the United Nations or in New York.”

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Times staff writer Paul Richter in Naples contributed to this report.

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