Australia intervenes in N Korea crisis

Mr Powell called for a 'new agreement' with North Korea

Australia has dispatched a team of diplomats to Pyongyang for talks with North Korea over its nuclear programme.

They are the first Western envoys to visit Pyongyang since the crisis began last year.

A special United Nations envoy has also travelled to North Korea to assess the humanitarian situation in the impoverished and isolated country.

I think that we need a new arrangement and not [to] just go back to the existing framework

Colin Powell

In Washington, meanwhile, US Secretary of State Colin Powell called for a new arrangement with North Korea to prevent another crisis from arising.

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Mr Powell said the 1994 Agreed Framework halted North Korea's actual production of nuclear material, but left the capacity for such production intact.

"I think, therefore, that we need a new arrangement and not [to] just go back to the existing framework," he said.

War of words

North Korea and the US have been engaged in a tense war of words since North Korea announced plans to reactivate one of its moribund nuclear facilities last December.

Mr McLean is to deliver a 'strong message'

The head of the five-strong Australian group, Murray McLean of Canberra's foreign affairs department, said his team would express "strong views" about the deteriorating situation.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said the trip was an Australian initiative, not a mission to carry messages from the US administration in Washington.

Maurice Strong - who has been sent by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to investigate the humanitarian situation in North Korea - was on the same flight as the Australian envoys.

The US has suspended shipments of food aid to North Korea, but the head of the US Agency for International Development said the move was unrelated to the nuclear crisis.

Message

Although contacts with Australia are expected to remain at the vice-ministerial level, the visiting diplomats are hoping to present Foreign Minister Paek Nam-sun with a letter from his Australian counterpart.

It reportedly urges his co-operation with diplomatic moves to lower tensions in the region.

Unlike the US, Australia has diplomatic relations with the secretive North. Australia had plans to open an embassy in Pyongyang before the nuclear crisis put them on hold.

CRISIS CHRONOLOGY

16 Oct: N Korea acknowledges secret nuclear programme, US says

14 Nov: Oil shipments to N Korea halted

22 Dec: N Korea removes monitoring devices at Bonbon nuclear plant

26 Dec: UN says 1,000 fuel rods have been moved to the plant

31 Dec: UN nuclear inspectors leave North Korea

6 Jan: IAEA demands inspectors be readmitted and secret weapons programme halted

7 Jan: US "willing to talk" to North Korea

10 Jan: N Korea pulls out of nuclear treaty

11 Jan: Pyongyang suggests it could resume ballistic missile tests

Timeline of tensions

North Korea maintains it has no choice but to restart its nuclear plants to produce electricity, as the US halted fuel shipments in October.

Washington stopped the aid after alleging that North Korea had admitted to resuming a nuclear programme.

On Monday, US envoy James Kelly said the US could resume fuel shipments to North Korea, if there was a nuclear solution.

Mr Kelly suggested that "once we get beyond nuclear weapons, there may be opportunities with the US, with private investors, with other countries to help North Korea in the energy area". He was speaking after holding talks with South Korean leaders in Seoul.

Mr Kelly also reiterated Washington's willingness to hold talks with North Korea, and hinted at energy aid.

North Korea's ambassador to Moscow, however, insisted that the US would have to make the first move.

"If the United States renounces its hostile policies and nuclear threats against North Korea, then we do not exclude the possibility of proving - through separate checks conducted between the United States and North Korea - that we are not producing nuclear weapons," the ambassador, Pak Ui-chun was quoted as saying.

Observers have suggested that North Korea has been hoping all along to force the US into signing a non-aggression pact and stumping up fresh aid by pushing the nuclear issue.