U.S. Envoy Meets Partners in N. Korea Negotiations

BEIJING — North Korea’s continued unwillingness to come to the negotiating table remains the major stumbling block in efforts to curtail its nuclear weapons program, a top U.S. envoy said Thursday.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said he had discussed with Chinese officials the possibility of future negotiations with North Korea on a peace treaty formally ending the Korean War. He did not elaborate.

The Korean peninsula is the last Cold War hot spot without a permanent peace and North Korea has expressed interest in replacing the cease-fire negotiated after the 1950-53 conflict with a formal treaty.

Hill flew to Seoul later Thursday and said he also might stop in Tokyo on his way back to Washington. Analysts said his swing through the region was aimed at keeping negotiating partners engaged.

The U.S. envoy told reporters in a Beijing hotel lobby that China and the United States agreed on the need to resume talks on dismantling isolated North Korea’s nuclear program.

“It’s not helping that [North Korea] continues to boycott the talks,” Hill said. “You do have to ask yourself why they’re not coming back.”

Some analysts say the imposition of financial restrictions on North Korea by the United States has not helped. The U.S. has accused the regime in Pyongyang, the capital, of money laundering and counterfeiting U.S. currency using high-quality printing presses. Washington recently imposed sanctions on North Korean companies and froze $20 million in assets held at a bank in Macao, China. Pyongyang has denied any wrongdoing.

Hill denied that this was the main stumbling block, and said that if North Korea was willing, the process could move forward. Although the Chinese previously have urged the U.S. to show flexibility on the financial issues, Hill said they didn’t do so Thursday.

“I am not sure this is about the U.S. economic measures,” Hill told reporters in Seoul a few hours after leaving Beijing, according to the Associated Press. “I think this is about a country that just has trouble making up its mind.”

An agreement in September under which Pyongyang would dismantle its nuclear program in return for aid, security assurances and diplomatic ties appeared to offer a glimmer of hope. But follow-up talks in November ended inconclusively and hope for negotiations this year dissipated.

In addition to North Korea, China and the United States, South Korea, Japan and Russia are party to the negotiations. Hill said the U.S. remains committed to the process.

That commitment may be a bit wobbly, however, after recent reports that Vice President Dick Cheney has all but given up on the talks. But analysts said the fact that Hill had traveled to the region suggests that either Cheney has relented somewhat, or that he was not as close to pulling the plug on the talks as had been suggested.

“Not knowing what the U.S. is willing to put on the table or how much leeway Hill has, it’s hard to know what’s really going on,” said Banning Garrett, director of Asian programs at the Atlantic Council in Washington. “But I don’t think Hill is in Asia just for smoke and mirrors.”

Liu Jianchao, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, said the meeting Thursday between Hill and Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei lasted four hours.

He said all sides had an interest in a nuclear-free Korean peninsula and emphasized the importance of implementing the terms of the September agreement as soon as possible.

China, which has played host to the talks held over several years, is North Korea’s closest ally. But it also appears increasingly frustrated with its mercurial Communist neighbor.