U.S. Official Hopeful in N. Korea Dispute

A senior U.S. official expressed optimism Thursday that six-party talks on dismantling North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs would be convened in January or February, although the communist regime had yet to agree.

The official gave his assessment amid reports of a dispute between U.S. and Chinese officials over the wording of a document meant to provide the framework for the talks.

Sources close to the negotiations said the Bush administration had rewritten a Chinese-drafted statement to include the long-standing U.S. demand that North Korea agree to the verification of any disarmament deal. Beijing reportedly wants vaguer language, arguing that it would be more likely to draw the North back to the negotiating table.

Since the first round of talks in August, Chinese and U.S. officials have repeatedly said they expected a second round to be convened soon, but North Korea has refused to agree to a date. The U.S. and its allies are hoping that the talks -- which also include Russia, South Korea and Japan -- will break the stalemate with the North.

The Bush administration is depending on China, as Pyongyang’s most important ally, to deliver North Korea for a second round of talks. The U.S. official declined to comment on reports of discord between the Americans and Chinese in negotiating the framework, acknowledging only that the Chinese are in a difficult position.

“The Chinese have been doing a lot of good and hard work in trying to get the thing going, but I think at times they are conflicted in their various roles as participants and communicators with the DPRK,” the senior official said, referring to North Korea by its formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. “It’s not an easy task to talk to the DPRK, even for the Chinese.”

The official requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the negotiations.

While insisting that there are no “serious differences” between the U.S. and China on the issues, the official said the U.S. had conducted “tens, maybe even hundreds, of hours of discussions with the Chinese to figure out how to put this in such a way that’s most likely to be successful.”

Offers designed to get the North Koreans back to talks and what the parties are prepared to offer to clinch a deal during negotiations “can’t be in conflict in the end.... We’d just be misleading or kidding ourselves and our partners in the negotiations if we did that,” the senior official said.

The U.S. position is that North Korea must agree to a complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantling of its nuclear weapons programs. The CIA believes that the North has at least two plutonium bombs and a secret uranium-enrichment program, although foreign and former U.S. officials have said that assessment rests on limited intelligence.

“There have been lots of attempts by lots of administrations to end North Korea’s weapons programs, and none of them [has] been successful,” the senior official added. “We want to make sure that we get it right.”

The key issues that have emerged as stumbling blocks are the sequencing of concessions, the North Koreans’ demand for security guarantees from the U.S., and the regime’s willingness to submit to verification.

Administration officials say privately that because North Korea has cheated on a previous nuclear agreement, its failure to agree to an extensive system of verification would be “a deal-breaker.”

But North Korea’s official newspaper, the Rodong Shinmun, insisted Thursday that its campaign “to beef up its nuclear deterrent” against the U.S. would continue until Washington agreed to a “simultaneous package solution” of economic assistance and promised not to attack the North.