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International negotiations on North Korea's nuclear programme resumed in Beijing, capital of China, on Thursday.

Pyongyang's envoy said he was ready to discuss initial steps toward nuclear disarmament, raising hopes for the first tangible progress at the talks since they began over three years ago.

"We are prepared to discuss first-stage measures," North Korean nuclear envoy Kim Kye Gwan said on arriving in Beijing for the six-nation negotiations.

United States' experts, who had visited Kim in Pyongyang last week, said North Korea would propose a freeze of its main nuclear reactor and a resumption of international inspections in exchange for energy aid and a normalisation of relations with Washington.

Kim said on Thursday that any moves by North Korea would depend on the United States' attitude. "We are going to make a judgement based on whether the United States will give up its hostile policy and come out toward peaceful coexistence," he said. "The US is well aware of what it has to do."

North Korea has twice boycotted the nuclear talks for more than a year, alleging that various US policies show that the Bush Administration intends to topple its communist government.

"I am not either optimistic or pessimistic because there are still many points of confrontation to resolve," Kim said in Beijing.

Still, his comments marks a change in North Korea's position from the last round of talks in December 2006, when Kim refused even to discuss disarmament and demanded the lifting of US financial restrictions against a Macau bank where North Korea held accounts.

Earlier on Thursday, the main US envoy said he sensed "a real desire to have progress" by the North Koreans at the talks.

However, US envoy Christopher Hill denied a Japanese newspaper report that the United States and North Korea had signed a memorandum during bilateral talks last month agreeing that the North's first steps toward denuclearisation and the US' energy support would begin simultaneously.

At the formal opening of the meeting, Chinese envoy Wu Dawei highlighted the contacts between Washington and Pyongyang since the six nations last gathered, which he said would "provide a more solid basis for this session."

Japan's envoy Kenichiro Sasae demanded that North Korea should halt operation of its reactor and allow inspections as initial steps "within a reasonably short period of time."

The lack of any on-the-ground results on disarming North Korea has raised the issue of the credibility of the six-nation talks, which involve China, Japan, Russia, the US and the two Koreas.

Since 2003, they have produced only a single joint statement, in September 2005, on principles for North Korea to abandon its nuclear programme in exchange for aid and pledges that Washington would not seek the regime's ouster.

South Koreas envoy said on Thursday that the negotiations were at an "important crossroads" and needed to move beyond words to actions.

"The latest nuclear standoff with the North was sparked in late 2002 after Washington accused North Korea of having a secret uranium enrichment programme in violation of a 1994 deal between the two countries. North Korea ousted international nuclear inspectors and restarted its reactor -- moves that culminated in the country's first-ever test atomic detonation in October 2006.

posted by a correspondent @ 11:19 PM

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