North Korea appears ready to resume three-way talks with China and the US about ending its suspected nuclear arms programme, a senior US State Department official said on Wednesday. The official said a senior Chinese official would visit Washington this week to discuss the issue. Washington still wants to include Japan and South Korea but has not ruled out the possibility of more three-way talks, the official said.Washington learned of N Korea’s willingness to resume three-way talks — after months of demanding direct discussions — from China, which hosted a round in Beijing in April and has since pushed the others to resume talks.‘‘We have been in very close touch with the Chinese and (from) what we have heard so far it appears the North Koreans are willing to resume the Beijing talks,’’ said the US official, who asked not to be named. ‘‘We will continue to press for five, but we will keep talking (and) keep in very close touch with the Chinese,’’ he said, adding that Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo was due in Washington for talks later this week.Dai, who has just ended a four-day visit to North Korea, is expected to meet Secretary of State Colin Powell, who earlier predicted movement on the diplomatic front ‘‘in the very near future’’ — apparently alluding to the impending visit.Unnerved by the standoff between Pyongyang and Washington, China has floated a compromise for talks it hopes will bring the two sides back to the table. A senior Japanese Foreign Ministry official said Beijing’s proposal offered hope for a breakthrough but he added Pyongyang had limited time to respond before the US and its allies turn up the heat.‘‘The window of opportunity is limited and we are hoping that China will make a breakthrough, so that we can at least arrive at an entry point for a comprehensive settlement,’’ the Japanese official said.Meanwhile, on Thursday in a rare incident South Korea exchanged machinegun fire with Communist North Korea that could raise the diplomatic stakes. The South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said its troops returned fire a minute after the North shot at an observation post in the Demilitarised Zone, the divided peninsula’s fortified frontier.
