N. Korea ready to talk again, probably slowly

After a 13-month boycott, a nuclear test and much posturing, North Korea returns Monday to six-nation talks that have yielded few results and resume with few expectations.

An important focus for early jostling will be timing and deadlines, analysts said. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has called on the North to dismantle its nuclear weapons program within two years in exchange for aid, energy assistance and improved relations.

North Korea has an interest in avoiding a quick resolution. The longer it keeps the program intact, the more likely the world is to accept its status as a member of the nuclear club, as Pakistan and India discovered. Extending talks beyond the 2008 U.S. elections also could bring it a new negotiating partner, in the form of a new administration, that it might find easier to deal with.

As always, each participant in the talks will be looking over its shoulder. Though the U.S. and the other parties -- China, South Korea, Japan and Russia -- favor quick results, they don’t want to push North Korea so hard that it walks away.

The last time North Korea left in a huff, the standoff led to its Oct. 9 test of what experts believe was a relatively small nuclear device -- probably less than 1 kiloton, or about 7% of the explosive capability of the 1945 Hiroshima bomb. Another breakdown in negotiations could lead to a second test.

The regime in Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital, has an interest in producing a more powerful and technologically sophisticated explosion. Such a test would not only bolster the country’s deterrence against attack but would also raise its weapons program’s value as a bargaining chip, offering hope that other countries will pay it more to disband the program.

A key short-term reason North Korea is returning to the table could be the carrots and sticks China quietly offered its neighbor, calling into question how motivated Pyongyang is to achieve real progress.

The longer North Korea keeps the other nations talking, the less likely they are to impose cargo inspections on it or strictly implement economic sanctions involving luxury goods and conventional, ballistic, chemical and nuclear weapons under United Nations Resolution 1718, a measure passed unanimously by the Security Council on Oct. 14.

In recent weeks there has been some narrowing of the wide gap between the U.S. and North Korea in at least two areas: financial sanctions and direct talks.

Pyongyang has been incensed by the sanctions the U.S. imposed in 2005 involving at least $24 million in North Korean assets at a Macao bank. The action was taken in response to Pyongyang’s reported money laundering, weapons proliferation and counterfeiting activities, and Washington has insisted this issue be handled outside the six-party framework.

In recent weeks, however, the Bush administration has said that $12 million of the funds might not be related to illegal activity, and officials have indicated a greater willingness to bring the issue into the talks.

After long maintaining that the administration would not hold direct talks with Pyongyang, chief U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill met with his North Korean counterpart Nov. 28. The three-way meetings also involved China, but Beijing officials left the two alone for substantial periods.

“So in effect, the United States was talking directly with North Korea,” said Shi Yuanhua, deputy director of the Center for Korean Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai. “The Americans have made their greatest compromise so far.”

But huge differences remain as Washington insists on a complete dismantling of the nuclear weapons program before anything else, even as North Korea insists on compensation before it dismantles a program it has been working on and using as leverage since 1990.

“It would certainly be good if we could solve this within two years,” said Yan Xuetong, a professor at Beijing’s Qinghua University. “But looking at cases in South Africa, Ukraine, Libya, it can take decades to solve a nuclear crisis. This one has only lasted 16 years.”

Analysts say that if this round of talks both prevents the North from testing again and stops other nations from tightening sanctions on the regime -- in effect a stand-down on both sides -- that in itself will be a small achievement.

“Everyone wants good results,” said Zhang Liangui, a Korea expert at the Central Party School in Beijing. “Without deadlines and an agreement on holding regular talks, however, that’s just a nice wish.”

mark.magnier@latimes.com

Gu Bo in The Times’ Beijing Bureau contributed to this report.