N. Korea willing to talk on nukes

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SEOUL -- North Korea told a visiting U.S. congressional delegation yesterday that it would return to six-nation talks on its nuclear weapons program and become a "friend" of the United States, hinting at a possible reversal of a decades-old policy of calling America its "sworn enemy."

Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Curt Weldon said North Korea appeared ready to negotiate "in a matter of weeks." He spoke at a press conference in South Korea's capital, Seoul.

Yesterday's overture -- while requiring that Washington not vilify North Korean leader Kim Jong-il -- was highly unusual. Pyongyang's anti-American propaganda has been whipped into a near-religious fervor, with banners in villages everywhere exhorting North Koreans to prepare for an inevitable war with the "U.S. imperialists."

"The DPRK side expressed its stand that the DPRK would not stand against the U.S. but respect and treat it as a friend unless the latter slanders the former's system and interferes in its internal affairs," said the North's official news agency, KCNA, using the country's official name, Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

North Korean officials stressed the "need to take a future-oriented approach toward improving the bilateral relations," the news agency said.

White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan took a wait-and-see approach to the statement out of Pyongyang.

"We will see by their actions how serious they are. ... We look forward to the next round of talks; we hope they will occur soon," Mr. McClellan told reporters yesterday aboard Air Force One for President Bush's trip to Florida.

Pyongyang's unexpected gesture came shortly after a bipartisan delegation of six American lawmakers concluded talks with senior communist officials in Pyongyang, the capital. Mr. Weldon, vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, called the trip an "overwhelming success."

During their four-day trip, the six congressmen met with North Korea's No. 2 leader, Kim Yong-nam, Foreign Minister Paek Nam-sun and Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan, who is also the country's chief nuclear negotiator.

Mr. Weldon, who led the delegation, dismissed recent news reports that North Korea began removing leader Kim Jong-il's portraits in Pyongyang. But he said a large billboard he saw during his first trip there in May 2003 was no longer there -- a mural showing a North Korean driving a bayonet into an American soldier."