North Korea demands sanctions removal before it will disarm

The talks – also including China, Japan, Russia and South Korea – convened after the North ended a 13-month boycott over US financial restrictions.

Prospects for progress are uncertain, and North Korea issued a list of preconditions before it would dismantle its atomic programme at the opening of the talks at a Chinese state guesthouse in Beijing.

Among the North’s demands were the lifting of all UN sanctions and US financial restrictions, along with being given a nuclear reactor for power and energy aid until it is built, according to a summary of opening speeches released by one of the delegations involved.

The North also said that now it was a nuclear power that the negotiations should be arms reduction talks – repeating its previous insistence it be treated on equal footing with the US.

If its demands aren’t met, the North said it would increase its nuclear deterrent, according to the summary.

The US offered in its opening comments to normalise relations with Pyongyang, but only after it halted its nuclear programme.

“North Korea basically seems to say that it cannot dismantle its nuclear programme unless the US drops what it calls a hostile policy,” a South Korean official said.

“North Korea has listed the maximum demands it can make in its speech,” the official said, adding Pyongyang was taking a “department store approach” in wanting everything on the table.

The North will meet directly with the Americans later today, according to the South Korean official.

The sides are working to implement a September 2005 statement from the talks and outline initial steps to be taken. In that agreement – the only ever reached at the talks – the North pledged to abandon its nuclear program in exchange for security guarantees and aid.

The US nuclear envoy, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, has called on the North to live up to its disarmament pledge and threatened a move to sanctions if it fails to do so.

“This session has significant meaning in building on past progress and paving the way for the future,” Chinese envoy Wu Dawei said at the talks’ start. “We hope that with the concerted efforts of all parties, we will be able to produce positive results at this session.”

South Korea’s nuclear negotiator Chun Yung-woo proposed that moves be taken within a few months to implement the agreement.

“We urged North Korea to take bold and substantial initial steps to dismantle its nuclear program and stressed that the other five countries’ corresponding measures should also be bold and substantial,” Chun told reporters later.

Japan’s chief envoy Kenichiro Sasae criticised North Korea for stalling the talks by conducting missile and nuclear tests, according to a summary of his speech released by the Japanese delegation.

North Korea agreed to return to the six-nation negotiations just weeks after its October 9 nuclear test, saying it wanted to discuss US financial restrictions against a bank where the regime held accounts for its alleged complicity in counterfeiting US currency and money laundering by Pyongyang.

Separate US-North Korean meetings on the financial issue expected to begin Monday were delayed by a day because the North Korean delegation responsible for that hasn’t yet arrived in Beijing, the South Korean official said.

The arms talks have been plagued by delays and discord since they began in August 2003.

But North Korea’s nuclear test of a device believed to be relatively small in explosive power has apparently hardened the will of other countries - particularly key benefactor China – to persuade the North to disarm.

Beijing signed on to a unanimous UN Security Council resolution sanctioning North Korea for its nuclear test, and brought Pyongyang and Washington together just a few weeks after the underground detonation to agree to a resumption of the arms talks.