North Korea offered to scrap its nuclear programme during talks with the United States in Beijing last week if Washington dropped its “hostile attitude”, Western diplomats briefed by a Chinese official said on Monday. US Secretary of State Colin Powell said in Washington that North Korea had proposed a plan that would “ultimately deal with” their nuclear capability and missile activities, but wanted something major in return. “The North Koreans acknowledged a number of things that they were doing and in effect said these are now up for further discussion,” Powell told reporters. “They did put forward a plan that would ultimately deal with their nuclear capability and their missile activities but they of course expect something considerable in return,” he said. The diplomats in Beijing said Pyongyang had also offered to suspend missile tests and stop missile exports. One envoy quoted the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s top North Korea expert as saying North Korea had sought “credible security assurances” from the United States during the talks. North Korean negotiators told their US counterparts that nuclear inspectors would be allowed into their country if Washington “dropped its hostile attitude”, a European diplomat said. The first diplomat quoted the Chinese official as saying Pyongyang had demanded Washington negotiate “on the basis of equality and mutual sovereignty”. North Korea also sought compensation for a delay in the completion of light water reactors under a 1994 pact in which Pyongyang agreed to freeze its nuclear programme in return for them, they said. US sources said North Korean officials told Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly in Beijing that their country already had atomic bombs, and could make more because it had reprocessed thousands of spent nuclear fuel rods. But the Chinese Foreign Ministry painted an entirely different picture of the April 23-25 talks, which Beijing hosted in the hope of ending a nuclear standoff between Washington and Pyongyang. The Western diplomats quoted the Chinese official as saying Pyongyang wanted to establish diplomatic relations with Washington and mend fences with South Korea and Japan. But North Korea warned of “extraordinary measures” if the United States played its “usual tricks”, the first diplomat quoted the Chinese official as saying. China does not want a nuclear-armed North Korea, a prospect that conjures visions of Japan, South Korea and even China’s rival Taiwan also going nuclear. (Reuters)
