U.S. wants bilateral, multilateral engagement with N. Korea: envoys

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BEIJING, May 7 Kyodo -
The United States hopes to engage bilaterally and multilaterally with North
Korea to solve tensions through dialogue, the top U.S. envoy for North Korea
said Thursday after holding talks with his Chinese counterparts.
Stephen Bosworth, the U.S. special representative for North Korea policy, said
he had ''very good'' meetings with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi and
Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei, the chair of the six-party denuclearization
talks.
''We had extensive discussion of where we are and talked about the way
forward,'' Bosworth said.
''The United States reiterates its desire to engage both multilaterally and
bilaterally with North Korea, and we believe very strongly that the solution to
the tensions and problems of the area now lies in dialogue and negotiation,''
he said.
Bosworth did not take any questions from reporters.
The U.S. envoy is leading a team of the country's officials who arrived in
Beijing on Thursday afternoon for the first stop on a four-nation, nine-day
visit that will also take them to South Korea, Japan and Russia.
The trip is aimed at discussing strategy for bringing North Korea back to the
multilateral negotiations at a time when it has stepped up its missile and
nuclear rhetoric.
Pyongyang said on April 14 that it was pulling out of the six-party talks in
response to the U.N. Security Council's censure of its April 5 rocket launch.
North Korea says the launch put a satellite into orbit but many countries view
it as a cover for testing its long-range missile technology.
Pyongyang pushed the stakes higher on April 29, threatening to carry out
nuclear tests as well as test-firings of intercontinental ballistic missiles
unless the Security Council apologizes.
A South Korean media report said Thursday there were movements of people and
vehicles at a nuclear test site in northeastern North Korea, in a possible sign
of preparations for another nuclear experiment.
The U.S. team includes Sung Kim, special envoy for the six-party talks. The
group will fly to Seoul on Friday and move to Tokyo on Monday. It will then
visit Moscow on Tuesday before returning to Washington.
The current itinerary covers all of Washington's six-party talks partners
excluding North Korea. U.S. State Department spokesman Robert Wood said in
Washington on Tuesday the delegation had no plans to visit North Korea.
While Beijing has been the venue for bilateral contacts between the United
States and North Korea in the past, North Korean officials were not seen among
the passengers of a regular flight from Pyongyang to Beijing on Thursday.
The six-party talks have been stalled since December due to differences over
ways to verify Pyongyang's nuclear activities.
==Kyodo