New Round of N. Korea Talks May Be Difficult

Six-nation talks on North Korea’s nuclear program are to resume tonight after a monthlong hiatus during which Pyongyang has dug in its heels, insisting that even if it gives up atomic weapons, it must be allowed to have nuclear power plants to produce electricity.

Pyongyang’s position sets the stage for a difficult fourth round of negotiations in Beijing. Diplomats from the five other participating nations had hoped that a month’s break might untangle some of the more complicated points of disagreement, but early indications are that just the opposite has happened.

North Korea has faced energy shortages for years, and officials in Pyongyang told a delegation of visiting Americans three weeks ago that they reserved the right to have a light-water nuclear reactor -- a type that is less easily adapted for weapons production. U.S. officials are wary of allowing Pyongyang any nuclear capability for fear that it could be used to make bombs.

Instead, the U.S. has backed a South Korean proposal to run power cables across the demilitarized zone into North Korea. But the North appeared to reject that idea on the grounds that the nation would have no energy self-sufficiency.

“We don’t want to be at the whim of somebody else who can turn on and off the power” was how Charles Pritchard, a former State Department official, paraphrased North Korean nuclear negotiator Kim Kye Gwan. Kim was speaking to Pritchard and two others, retired Los Alamos National Laboratory Director Siegfried S. Hecker and retired Stanford University professor John W. Lewis, during the Aug. 23-27 trip.

Before flying to Beijing today, Kim said the right to nuclear energy “is neither awarded nor needs to be approved by others.... We should use this right,” the New China News Agency reported.

The South Korean proposal has become the cornerstone of the U.S. effort to get North Korea to renounce nuclear weapons.

“They have a rather ambitious and important conventional energy proposal, which will within 2 1/2 to three years begin lighting up [North Korean] towns, cities and villages,” Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said Monday as he emerged from a meeting with South Korean officials in Seoul.

Hill, the chief U.S. delegate to the six-party talks, declined to characterize his mood going into the negotiations. “It’s hard to be optimistic or pessimistic at this point. It hasn’t started.... After I get a chance to talk to [the North Koreans], I’ll have a better assessment of what they’ve used the last month for.”

In recent days, South Korean officials have expressed concern that the North was hardening its demand to have a light-water reactor. On the eve of the talks, they sounded a pessimistic note.

“We are not even cautiously optimistic. We are just cautious,” one official said Monday on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation. “But I do think what happened during the recess is something we all anticipated. Because you are no longer at the negotiating table, you are communicating through public statements that reflect hard-line, fundamental views, and there is no opportunity to close the gap.”

The diplomats have set the bar relatively low for this round of talks. Their immediate goal is to elicit agreement on a joint statement of principles, a sticking point during the last round, which ended Aug. 7 after 13 days.

“The agreement will be very general,” said Zhang Liangui, a professor at the Central Party School in Beijing. “The tough job will be at the next round, when they have to start grappling with concrete problems.”

The United States of late has been seen as seeking creative solutions. That has won Washington praise from Chinese analysts, who in the past had been critical of what they regarded as the Bush administration’s rigidity.

“I really appreciate their increased flexibility,” said Zhu Feng, an international relations professor at Peking University.

The U.S. remains opposed, however, to letting North Korea have a light-water reactor or other elements of a peaceful nuclear energy program before it rejoins the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty -- which it quit several years ago -- and submits to a full inspection program by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

In 2003, the United States pulled the plug on an ambitious deal struck in 1994 under which Washington and its allies were building twin light-water reactors on North Korea’s east coast. The administration is adamant that construction of the project, which is about one-third complete, should not resume.

Some observers suggest that a current deal might have the U.S. acknowledge North Korea’s right to peaceful nuclear energy, even as the country agrees to voluntarily forgo that right.

At the end of the last round, said a congressional official who requested anonymity, “North Korea came in loaded for bear, wanting a light-water reactor. But there’s a feeling they will back off.”

Pritchard said he saw a potential for compromise, noting that the North Koreans were not insisting that the east coast project be completed but merely on the right to a light-water reactor.

“It is not an absolute stumbling block,” he said, “but it is going to make the [following] round more difficult.”

Demick reported from Seoul and Magnier from Beijing. Yin Lijin in The Times’ Beijing Bureau contributed to this report.