N. Korea OKs Peace Talks Briefing

Despite continued North Korean invective, efforts to reduce tensions on the Korean peninsula moved forward Monday with the Communist government in Pyongyang saying it is willing to attend a briefing on possible four-party peace talks.

The peace talks announcement, issued by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency, came shortly after a ceremony at the truce village of Panmunjom in which South Korea handed over white boxes containing the ashes of 24 North Koreans killed after their submarine ran aground on the South Korean coast in September.

Return of the remains came a day after Pyongyang expressed “deep regret” for the incident, which Seoul accepted as an apology for the apparent spy mission that also left 13 South Koreans dead.

In Washington, the Clinton administration said the apology cleared the way for resumption of efforts to make peace on the Korean peninsula, a process that has been frozen since the submarine ran aground.

Administration officials said they are more optimistic than they have been in months that North Korea will finally agree to talks with South Korea, the United States and China. The four nations were the main combatants in the Korean War. The talks are aimed at officially ending the war, which stopped four decades ago with an armistice, not a peace treaty. The United States still keeps 37,000 soldiers in South Korea.

“We do have an objective of improving our relations with the North, and we will seek to do that, but always in close cooperation with Seoul and only in the context of a North-South dialogue,” a senior U.S. official told reporters.

But as soon as the ashes were handed over in Panmunjom, North Korean loudspeakers boomed out praise of the dead men as “martyrs who fought like heroes.”

“This incident revealed that the South Korean regime consists of human butchers and colonial pawns,” the voice on the loudspeaker said.

The senior U.S. official shrugged off the renewal of North Korean invective.

“I don’t see it as ominous,” he said. “The North Koreans employ heavy propaganda at all times. What counts is deeds, not words.” He explained that Washington considers the formal apology a deed with positive implications.

U.S. and South Korean officials said they expect that in late January or early February, North Korean representatives will attend a joint briefing by Washington and Seoul on the four-party peace talks proposal, first made in April by President Clinton and South Korean President Kim Young Sam.

South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency, quoting an unnamed South Korean official, reported that agreement “in principle” was reached Saturday between Washington and Seoul and Pyongyang to hold the briefing session in January. But the location, exact date and level of participation in the talks remained to be worked out through U.S.-North Korean negotiations in New York, the official said.

A U.S. official said the briefing is expected “in the next few weeks at the most.”

Washington and Seoul hope to use the briefing as a “virtual preparatory meeting” to set the location, dates, level and agenda for four-party talks, the South Korean official said. Pyongyang, however, may not be willing to move so quickly from the briefing stage to formal peace talks, he added.

A separate Yonhap report said the briefing would be preceded by a meeting of senior U.S., South Korean and Japanese officials.

South Korean media also reported rapid progress is likely in other areas that could help defuse North-South tensions.

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Unnamed South Korean officials were quoted as saying that a memorandum could be signed as early as next month on implementation of a 1994 nuclear agreement. In that deal, Pyongyang pledged to shut down its suspected nuclear weapons program in return for oil and two nuclear reactors that would be largely financed by South Korea.

In Washington, Sandra Kristoff, White House advisor on Asia policy, said the North Korean apology opens the door for consideration of “all of those issues that were on our agenda, particularly since last April.” Those issues include humanitarian assistance, the nuclear reactors, the peace accord briefing and economic issues, she said.

The North’s official news agency, in the same report announcing its “willingness” to attend a briefing on the peace talks proposal, said Washington has already agreed to “take additional measures to ease the embargo on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and supply food.”

But a senior U.S. official said Washington has no plans to provide direct food aid to North Korea although “humanitarian concerns” would be addressed on a case-by-case basis. He implied that humanitarian aid was far more likely than it had been before Pyongyang’s apology.

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Times staff writer Norman Kempster in Washington and Chi Jung Nam of The Times’ Seoul Bureau contributed to this report.