The US yesterday cautiously opened the door to further talks with North Korea after Mr Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, met his North Korean counterpart in the highest-level contact between the two nations since the Bush administration came to office in early 2001.
Mr Powell held a 15-minute informal chat over coffee with Mr Paek Nam-sun, the North Korean Foreign Minister, at the start of the Asean Regional Forum, an annual Asia-Pacific security meeting, in the capital of Brunei.
He described it as "a good meeting", saying: "We agreed where we are and I told him that we should stay in touch and see how to pursue our dialogue."
The brief session capped a recent series of moves by North Korea to reduce tensions on the Korean peninsula sparked by its sinking of a South Korean naval vessel a month ago.
North Korea has since expressed "regret" for the incident and told Mr Igor Ivanov, Russia's Foreign Minister, during a visit to Pyongyang this week that it was prepared to resume dialogue with the US and Japan "without any preliminary conditions".
Tokyo responded to the initiative by announcing yesterday that North Korea and Japan would hold Red Cross talks in mid-August, followed a meeting of senior foreign ministry officials in Pyongyang at the end of the month to discuss the normalisation of ties.
After yesterday's meeting, Mr Powell noted the recent statements made by North Korea.
Mr Powell also repeated earlier US conditions that any talks with North Korea should address the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, safeguards to prevent North Korea developing nuclear weapons and reduction of conventional forces along the border with South Korea.
North Korea has previously objected to the inclusion of conventional forces in the agenda.
The terse US statement was seen as encouraging North Korea to resume dialogue, but without firmly committing the US to any negotiations. - (Financial Times Service)