North Korea To Rejoin Six-Party Talks

North Korea agreed Tuesday to rejoin six-nation nuclear disarmament talks, the Chinese and U.S. governments said, in a surprise diplomatic breakthrough three weeks after the communist regime conducted its first known atomic test.

North Korea said Wednesday that it decided to return to international nuclear talks to resolve U.S. financial restrictions aimed at choking the regime's access to outside banks.

The North's Foreign Ministry said Pyongyang "decided to return to the six-party talks on the premise that the issue of lifting financial sanctions will be discussed and settled between the (North) and the U.S. within the framework of the six-party talks."

The agreement was struck in a day of unpublicized three-way discussions between the senior envoys from the United States, China and North Korea at a government guesthouse in Beijing. The U.S. negotiator, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, said that the six-nation negotiations could resume as early as November or December.

"We took a step today toward getting this process back on track. This process has suffered a lot in recent weeks by the actions the DPRK has made," Hill told reporters afterward, using the initials for the North's formal name.

The agreement is one of the first signs of easing tensions since North Korea conducted the underground detonation on Oct. 9, defying warnings from both the United States and Japan and its staunchest ally, China.

It also marks a diplomatic victory for China and the United States, which worked closely together in the wake of the test, but especially for Beijing. Though stung by Pyongyang's test, China had counseled against punishing North Korea too harshly, weakening a U.N. resolution sanctioning Pyongyang, and suggested leaving a path for diplomacy.

CBS News reporter Celia Hatton in Beijing says Chinese leaders were worried that tough sanctions could make the atmosphere in East Asia even worse by pushing Kim Jong Il's regime into a corner, and making the use of a nuclear weapon his only bargaining chip.

"One of the very important dynamics of the past weeks has been a very close joint China-U.S. effort on this," Hill said. For the North, he added later, "I don't think the situation is getting any easier for their staying away from the talks."

China has denied reports it forced North Korea back to the bargaining table by cutting fuel aid to its impoverished neighbor, says Hatton.

Chinese trade data apparently shows that shipments of crude oil were dropped in September, but China's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Liu Jianchao, said he was unaware of a change in Chinese policy towards North Korea.

If China was strong-arming North Korea by withholding aid, it wouldn't be the first time. Beijing forced North Korean officials to attend the first round of six-party talks by turning off oil pipelines for three days in 2003.

President George W. Bush hailed the agreement and credited China with helping to bring it about. "I am pleased and I want to thank the Chinese," Bush told reporters at the White House.

Both the U.S. and North Korea showed flexibility at Tuesday's meeting. Hill said Washington agreed to discuss the financial sanctions Washington imposed on North Korea a year ago as part of the renewed disarmament talks.

Pyongyang, which had boycotted the negotiations for a year to protest the sanctions, did not make their lifting a condition for resuming the talks, Hill said.

The U.S. envoy added optimistically that he expects "substantial progress" during the next round of six-nation talks.

"North Korea's concession to return to the six-party talks is the result of both the carrots and the sticks, which included the tough sanctions imposed by the Security Council, and incentives including more direct contact with the U.S. CBS News foreign affairs analyst Pamela Falk reported from the U.N. Tuesday.

At the Beijing talks, Pyongyang's negotiator, Kim Gye Gwan, "made the point" that North Korea considered itself a nuclear power, Hill said. "I made it very clear that the United States does not accept the DPRK as a nuclear power and neither does China."

Hatton reports that North Korean diplomats have not made any explicit promises to halt plans for further nuclear tests, according to Hill, but most analysts agree the North's decision to participate in talks is a good sign.

Other partners in the talks — Japan, Russia and South Korea — greeted word of the breakthrough with varying degrees of enthusiasm. South Korea, which like China has urged engagement with Pyongyang, and Russia were positive about the prospects of resuming the negotiations.

"The government hopes that the six-party talks will resume at an early date as agreed, South Korea's Foreign Ministry spokesman Choo Kyu-ho said.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Alexeyev said that Moscow views North Korea's decision as "extremely positive," ITAR-Tass and Interfax news agencies reported.

But Japan, which feels threatened by North Korea's nuclear and missile programs, took a more skeptical line.

While Japan welcomed the prospect of a new round of talks, it "does not intend to accept North Korea's return to the talks on the premise that it possess nuclear weapons," public broadcaster NHK quoted Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso as saying. A resumption of talks "is conditional on North Korea not possessing nuclear weapons," Aso was quoted as saying.

Calls to the North Korean Embassy in Beijing seeking comment went unanswered.

China's Foreign Ministry released a brief statement, the first word of the breakthrough, saying that an agreement was struck on North Korea's rejoining the talks, but issued no other comment.

Hill cautioned that much work needed to be done to prepare for the resumption of talks.

"We're a long way from our goals here," he said. "I have not broken out the champagne and cigars yet."

Key in the coming days, Hill said, would be intense preparations by all parties to make sure a new round would deal substantively with an agreement reached at the last session of six-party talks in September 2005.

Among the issues would be how North Korea would take steps to ultimately give up its nuclear programs, he said. Other issues, such as a South Korean proposal to provide electricity to the economically desperate North, would also likely be explored, he said, as would how to set up a mechanism to discuss the U.S. financial sanctions.

Hill described intense backstage Chinese efforts to get the six-party talks on track. He said China contacted U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice late last week, asking if she would dispatch him to Beijing for a three-way discussion with North Korea.

Hill, who had been in the South Pacific at a forum of regional governments, cut short a visit to Australia, arriving in Beijing late Monday for Tuesday's talks.