N. Korea talks resume, progress hopes high

The United States held rare one-on-one meetings with North Korea on Monday and Tuesday—taking a less confrontational approach to talks which have dragged on for nearly three years.

US negotiator Christopher Hill offered reassurances that Washington regarded the North, which it once considered part of an ‘‘axis of evil’’, as a sovereign state that it would not attack.

Despite the upbeat signals, distrust is still great and the stakes are high. A North Korean source told Russia’s Interfax news agency on Tuesday that major disagreements remained.

Chinese delegation spokesman Qin Gang called the first day of talks a ‘‘sound foundation’’ , but quoted Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing as saying the participants still faced hard issues dating back to their Cold War past.

The talks may be coloured by evening briefings by negotiators and their home countries, particularly North Korea, where the ultimate decisions are made by reclusive leader Kim Jong-il.

Three previous rounds saw no progress and Japan warned that failure to gain concrete results this time would call the credibility of the talks into question.

A stalemate might prompt Washington to take the issue to the United Nations and open debate on possible sanctions, which China opposes and North Korea has warned would trigger conflict.

Japan raised on Tuesday the thorny issue of North Korea’s abduction of Japanese citizens decades ago, an issue that could prove a bar to progress. Pyongyang insists the case is closed and has warned Japan any attempt to raise the issue in Beijing would disrupt the nuclear talks.

If the talks go well, the rewards could help the impoverished North out of isolation and offer it aid at a time when the World Food Programme is warning of a worsening food crisis. —Reuters

Food crisis in North worsens

BEIJING: North Korea’s food crisis has worsened and neighbouring China is bracing for more hungry refugees, aid workers said. The impoverished Communist state has suffered persistent food shortages, although conditions appear to have improved since famine caused by drought and flooding in the mid- and late-1990s led to the deaths of more than a million people.

‘‘The limited availability of local food, the very rapid inflation in private markets and limited supplies in the hands of the WFP (World Food Programme)—that combination of factors is very ominous,’’ WFP spokesman Gerald Bourke said in an interview on Tuesday. REUTERS