Chinese push talks in Korea standoff

From combined dispatches

VIENNA, Austria — The chief of the United Nations’ atomic-energy agency yesterday called communist North Korea the world’s “most serious threat” to nuclear nonproliferation as diplomatic efforts to address the crisis on the Korean Peninsula moved into overdrive.

Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), made his comments as a senior Chinese envoy met with top U.S. officials pushing a new plan for talks on easing the North Korean nuclear standoff.

Also yesterday, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo met separately with National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell to brief them on his recent talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. Beijing is pushing a plan for new talks over the crisis, which has unnerved capitals across Northeast Asia.

Echoing U.S. fears, Mr. ElBaradei said yesterday he was concerned about reports that North Korea is reprocessing fuel rods. IAEA inspectors were expelled from the North last December, amid U.S. charges that Pyongyang had violated a 1994 deal not to pursue a nuclear-weapons program.

“We are not there,” he said. “We would like to be there.”

Mr. Dai said his Washington meetings were “in-depth” and “useful,” but declined to elaborate.

“The meetings and talks have been useful,” he told reporters at the State Department after an unusually long 21/2-hour discussion with Mr. Powell.

“We both agree that we need to work together to push for the process to resolve the problem through dialogue,” he said.

There are indications that Mr. Dai’s visit to Pyongyang may have softened North Korea’s hard-line stance. He presented a personal letter from Chinese President Hu Jintao to North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il, which reportedly urged a restart to the talks.

North Korea has consistently demanded one-on-one talks with Washington. U.S. officials have declined, anxious not to be seen as rewarding North Korea for, as they see it, precipitating the crisis.

The United States has insisted on a multilateral format for the talks and has been eager to include its Japanese and South Korean allies.

“From what we know so far, and what we have been talking to the Chinese about, North Korea is willing to resume another round of Beijing talks that could be expanded,” a senior U.S. official said on Thursday.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said yesterday that U.S. insistence on five-way talks had not changed.

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