N. Korea makes big shift in nuclear talks demand

North Korea said yesterday it would consider any form of dialogue with the United States about its suspected nuclear arms ambitions if Washington made a "bold switchover" in its policy toward Pyongyang.

The dramatic shift from a rigid insistence on bilateral talks came in comments from North Korea's foreign ministry just days after US-led forces unseated Iraq's President Saddam Hussein in a war the South Korean president said had "petrified" Pyongyang.

Washington - which lumps communist North Korea in an "axis of evil" with Iraq and Iran for seeking weapons of mass destruction - wants multilateral talks that also include regional players South Korea, Japan, Russia and China.

"If the US is ready to make a bold switchover in its Korea policy for a settlement of the nuclear issue, the DPRK will not stick to any particular dialogue format," the official KCNA news agency quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying.

He did not specify what would constitute a "bold switchover" but the impoverished, energy-starved North has demanded security guarantees and aid in the past. DPRK is an abbreviation of the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

"I hope we can understand North Korea's comments as part of the recent gestures shown by North Korea to take a more positive stance towards the international community's initiatives to resolve the North Korea nuclear issue peacefully," Lee Jihyun, foreign media spokeswoman for South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, told Reuters.

Kim Jung-roh, deputy spokesman at the South Korean Unification Ministry, said by telephone Seoul had expected North Korea to shift its position gradually.

"Also, as the Iraq war is coming to an end faster than expected, North Korea has less options to take," he said.

There was no immediate comment from Washington, but the North Korean shift will clearly give the US an opportunity to intensify diplomacy towards the North now Saddam is gone. Washington says North Korea is trying to make nuclear weapons.

Roh told the Washington Post in an interview published on Friday the US-led Iraq war had had a profound impact on North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and other North Korean officials.

"Especially watching the recent Iraqi war I'm sure they are very much terrified... petrified by the Iraqi war," the Post quoted him as saying.

Roh, who will visit Washington next month for talks with US President George W. Bush, also said Kim had made decisions "beyond our commonsense understanding" but he felt the North Korean leader was wise enough to choose an open-ended road rather than a dead-end when it came to the North's nuclear plans.

The crisis erupted last October when Washington said Pyongyang had admitted having a covert nuclear weapons programme, although the North denied making such an admission.

Last Wednesday, the day Saddam's rule ended in Baghdad, the UN Security Council met to discuss the North's nuclear stance but did not issue a statement urging Pyongyang to fall into line because of opposition from China and Russia.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN nuclear watchdog, referred the crisis to the Security Council after North Korea quit the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty on January 10 and kicked out UN inspectors. It later restarted a nuclear reactor.