By Mansur Mirovalev and Foster Klug
The United States and South Korea have reacted coolly to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's reported readiness to impose a nuclear test and production moratorium if international talks on Pyongyang's atomic program resume.
Kim's armoured train was said to be heading Thursday toward Manchuria in China, a day after he led his country's latest effort to win new aid-for-disarmament discussions at a rare summit with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in eastern Siberia.
US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Kim's apparent offer was "a welcome first step" but not enough to restart the long-stalled talks meant to end the North's nuclear weapons ambitions.
Washington and Seoul have been wary of the North's repeated calls for new six-party nuclear talks, calling first for an improvement in dismal ties between the Koreas and for a sincere sign from the North that it will abide by past commitments it has made in previous rounds of the nuclear talks.
Yonhap news agency quoted an unnamed South Korean official as saying the results of the summit fell short of the expectations of Seoul, Washington and Tokyo.
Kim reportedly also made no mention of an issue that lies at the heart of negotiators' worries: North Korea's recently revealed uranium enrichment program. Yonhap said the South Korean official raised the need for the North to address its uranium efforts, which could give it another way to make atomic bombs.
The US State Department spokeswoman also said after the summit that North Korea's disclosure of a uranium enrichment facility last November "remains a matter of serious concern" that violates U.N. resolutions and nuclear commitments Pyongyang made in a 2005 deal.
"We will not go back to six-party talks until North Koreans are prepared to meet all of the commitments that we've all laid out," Nuland told reporters in Washington.
Medvedev spokeswoman Natalya Timakova was quoted by the ITAR-Tass news agency as saying that Kim expressed readiness to return to the nuclear talks without preconditions, and, "in the course of the talks, North Korea will be ready to resolve the question of imposing a moratorium on tests and production of nuclear missile weapons."
The North's state media confirmed Thursday that Kim and Medvedev agreed that nuclear disarmament talks should be resumed without any precondition to rid the Korean peninsula of nuclear weapons. A dispatch by the North's official Korean Central News Agency, however, didn't mention Kim's reported offer to freeze nuclear tests and production.
"We are convinced that the summit meeting today will undoubtedly mark an important landmark in boosting (North Korea)-Russia relations ... and turning Northeast Asia into the region for peace and cooperation," Kim said during a banquet hosted by Medvedev after the summit, according to KCNA.
The North promised to freeze its long-range missile tests in 1999, but has since routinely tested short-range missiles; it launched a long-range rocket in April 2009. It has also conducted two nuclear tests, most recently in 2009, and last year it shelled a South Korean front-line island, killing four, and allegedly torpedoed a South Korean warship, killing 46.
Kim and Medvedev met at the hotel of a military garrison near the city of Ulan-Ude in Buryatia, a predominantly Buddhist province near Lake Baikal. It is Kim's first trip to Russia since 2002, and it follows an easing in tensions between North and South Korea.
Nuclear envoys from the Koreas met last month on the sidelines of a regional security summit for what were described as cordial talks. A senior North Korean official then travelled to New York for talks with his US counterparts.
Yonhap said in an editorial that many had hoped the summit would signal change for the Korean peninsula, but the results instead seemed a "'storm in a teacup,' lacking any new content."
"The communist country has a track record of alternately using provocations and dialogue with South Korea, the United States and other regional powers to try to wrest concessions before backtracking on agreements and quitting the nuclear talks," the editorial said of the North.
The six-sided nuclear talks involving North Korea and the United States, China, Japan, Russia and South Korea were last held in December 2008. But faced with deepening sanctions and economic trouble, North Korea has pushed to restart them.
Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, hailed the North's willingness to freeze its missile and nuclear tests, but noted there was no clear mention of the North's uranium enrichment program, which can also make nuclear weapons.
"The North already has weaponized plutonium, and enriched uranium is something that can be proliferated in an easier manner," Yang said.
On another subject, Medvedev said Russia and North Korea moved forward on a proposal to ship natural gas to South Korea through a pipeline across North Korea.
North Korea had long been reluctant to help its powerful southern rival increase its gas supply, but recently has shown interest in the project. The South wants Russian energy but is wary of North Korean influence over its energy supply.
Medvedev, in televised comments, said the two countries will create a commission on "bilateral cooperation on gas transit."
He said two-thirds of the 700-mile (1,100-kilometer) pipeline would traverse North Korea to stream up to 10 billion cubic meters of gas a year to the South. Russia's state-controlled gas monopoly, Gazprom, said the pipeline is likely to carry gas from the giant offshore fields near the Pacific island of Sakhalin.
The two leaders also discussed restructuring North Korea's Soviet-era debt to Russia, said a Kremlin official, speaking on condition of anonymity. That debt totals about $11 billion, according to a top Russian official.
North Korea is believed to have enough weaponized plutonium for at least six atomic bombs, and is believed to be working toward mounting a nuclear bomb on a long-range missile.
KCNA said Kim has wrapped up his Russia trip and left Ulan-Ude but gave no further details. Yonhap reported Thursday that Kim's train appeared heading toward China's Manchuria area, but it was unclear if he planned to stop or head straight home to North Korea.
At their summit, Medvedev greeted Kim, who stepped out of an armoured Mercedes limousine saying he was "having a fun trip." Kim, however, looked frail as he limped to a chair in a meeting hall - a possible consequence of a stroke he reportedly had in 2008.
Kim invited Medvedev to visit North Korea, and the Russian leader accepted the offer, KCNA said.
AP