Accord Close on N. Korean Nuclear Pact : Asia: U.S. negotiators in Malaysia confirm breakthrough in stalled deal on reactors, weapons program that was signed last year. Agreement would avert threatened confrontation.

Negotiators for the United States and North Korea reached tentative agreement Saturday on how to resolve their differences over a nuclear weapons accord hammered out last October.

Robert L. Gallucci, the State Department’s chief coordinator on the issue, told reporters in Seoul that “we understand that . . . tentative understandings were reached between the two sides” in talks being conducted in Kuala Lumpur.

North Korean officials in the Malaysian capital issued a similar statement.

The next step is to “consult with our respective capitals. We expect to be in contact during the next few days,” said Thomas Hubbard, top U.S. delegate at the Malaysia session, after emerging from three hours of talks.

In October, North Korea had agreed to replace its Soviet-designed, graphite-moderated nuclear reactor with so-called light-water reactors, which produce less plutonium, a key ingredient in nuclear weapons. But the $4-billion deal ran into a stumbling block early this spring when Pyongyang balked at accepting equipment from its political nemesis, South Korea.

The Pyongyang government apparently had rejected the South Korean reactors for reasons of national pride and on grounds that it did not want to become too dependent on its longtime enemy.

Gallucci and Winston Lord, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian affairs, warned that the negotiators in Malaysia still have not settled on the precise language to be used in the new agreement--a step that has stymied previous efforts at a compromise.

“We are not yet finished in Kuala Lumpur,” Lord said.

Details of the reported compromise were not immediately available. Officials said the United States still must consult with Japan and South Korea, which are playing a crucial role in carrying out the accord. Those consultations could take several days.

Along with shutting down its graphite-moderated reactor, North Korea has pledged to halt its nuclear weapons program--which the CIA says has already produced enough plutonium to make at least one nuclear bomb. It has also stopped the reprocessing of about 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods, which triggered a U.S.-North Korean dispute last year.

In a slap at the West, Pyongyang reiterated Saturday that, if the talks in Malaysia failed, North Korea will resume the reprocessing effort--a move that the United States has warned would prompt Washington to seek economic sanctions, escalating the confrontation again.

A South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman said Saturday that North Korea had indicated its readiness to accept the South Korean reactors, but there was no confirmation from U.S. officials familiar with the talks.

Diplomats said that North Korea also had demanded additional economic and technical aid in exchange for accepting South Korean reactors but that the United States had rejected that. The original accord provided financial help for purchasing the reactor.

The negotiations were conducted by Hubbard, a deputy assistant secretary of state, and Kim Kye Gwan, vice minister of foreign affairs. The two have been meeting in Kuala Lumpur since May 20.

The October accord was negotiated after a dispute over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program ratcheted up anxieties between the United States and North Korea.

The Clinton Administration agreed to the general outlines of the accord after former President Jimmy Carter flew to North Korea and hammered out the pact with the country’s longtime leader, Kim Il Sung. Kim died a few weeks after the pact was signed.