North Korea might return to nuclear-arms talks next month, Kim says

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Il, said Friday that the nation was ready to resume negotiations over its nuclear arms program as early as next month, provided the United States treated it with respect, according to the South Korean government.

Kim also said that if the nuclear crisis was resolved, Pyongyang was ready to rejoin the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and allow international nuclear inspectors inside the country, according to Chung Dong-young, South Korea's minister of unification, who met with the North Korean leader.

In Washington, the Bush administration dismissed Kim's comments, repeating its past insistence that the North return to negotiations with no preconditions.

North Korea's proposal did not contain anything new. But it was significant because it came directly from Kim and not through the usual murky statement released by the official North Korean news agency. It amounted to the most positive sign yet that the nuclear talks, boycotted by Pyongyang since last June, have a chance of being revived.

At the news conference in Seoul, Chung said the North also seemed to be seeking assurances, as it has in the past, that it would not be attacked first by the United States.

"If the regime's security is guaranteed, there is no reason to possess a single nuclear weapon," Chung quoted Kim as saying.

North Korea withdrew from the treaty in early 2003 after it was accused by U.S. officials of running a covert uranium-enrichment program, which set off the current crisis. Early this year, the North declared that it had nuclear weapons.

The six-nation talks, which also include South Korea, China, Japan and Russia, began in the summer of 2003 but have failed to make progress partly because of disunity among the participants. While the United States and Japan have threatened punitive measures to try to coax the North back to the bargaining table, China and South Korea have stressed that clearer incentives are necessary.

Critics of South Korea's engagement policy toward the North say Pyongyang has used these meetings to appeal to Korean nationalism and extract various concessions from Seoul. Those criticisms are likely to increase if nothing comes of Friday's meeting.