China: North Korea agrees to push nuke talks

BEIJING -- North Korea's leader told Chinese officials he is committed to ending a nuclear dispute through dialogue, China said Wednesday, in what observers saw as a sign of progress in resolving the standoff.\nAfter top-level meetings in Beijing, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il agreed to continue six-nation talks over defusing the crisis, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.\nThe report, issued after the secretive Kim left the Chinese capital Wednesday, was China's first public confirmation of his three-day visit.\nKim's trip followed Vice President Dick Cheney's visit to Beijing last week. During that trip, he urged Chinese leaders to press North Korea to reach a settlement.\nWashington, D.C. insists on a "complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantling" of North Korea's nuclear facilities. North Korea says it would only give up its program in exchange for aid for its decrepit economy and a written promise from the United States that it won't attack.\nKim's trip to longtime ally China this week was his first since the nuclear dispute flared in October 2002, when U.S. officials said North Korea admitted running a secret nuclear weapons program in violation of international agreements.\nMeeting with President Hu Jintao, Kim said North Korea "sticks to the final nuclear-weapon-free goal and its basic position on seeking a peaceful solution through dialogue has not changed," Xinhua reported.\nThe last round of six-nation talks -- involving China, the two Koreas, the United States, Japan and Russia -- ended in February in Beijing without a settlement.\nKim also met former President Jiang Zemin, who remains head of the powerful commission that runs China's military. In addition, he met Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, Vice President Zeng Qinghong and Wu Bangguo, the No. 2 leader of China's Communist Party.\nChinese media had been silent about Kim's trip, though it was widely reported in South Korean media. Following his departure, Chinese state television showed footage of him hugging each of the leaders. He was shown dressed either in a Mao-style buttoned tunic or in his favored tan zip-up jacket with matching pants -- while the Chinese leaders all wore Western-style suits and ties.\nChina says those involved in the six-party talks want to meet again by July. Xinhua said Wednesday North Korea "will continue to take a patient and flexible manner and actively participate in the six-party talks process and make its own contributions to the progress of the talks."\nThe South Korean Foreign Ministry issued a one-sentence statement saying it hoped the meetings in China would lead to a peaceful end to the nuclear dispute.\nChina is North Korea's last major ally, and the two countries' ruling communist parties boast of close ties. But while China's experiments with capitalism have transformed it into an economic dynamo, North Korea suffers chronic food shortages and depends on its larger neighbor for aid.\nNorth Korea's worsening economy makes it more likely Kim will pay heed to China's calls for him to soften his position, observers say.\n"He's losing Chinese political and economic support more and more every day," said Park Joon-young, a political science professor at Ewha Women's University in Seoul, South Korea. "Everybody is expecting something good out of this (meeting) because Kim Jong Il made a new move and came out of his den."\nIn the end, it is North Korea that suffers the most if the standoff continues, analysts say.\n"They know they have to cut a deal," said Ron Huisken, a visiting fellow at the Strategic and Defense Studies Center at Australian National University in Canberra. "They just have to get the best deal that they can"