Bush upbeat on Korea talks

Bush upbeat on Korea talks

North Korea's fuel rods could be used to make nuclear bombs

North Korea can be steered away from the production of nuclear weapons through joint efforts by the US, Japan, South Korea and China, President George W Bush has said.

"I believe that all four of us, working together, have a good chance of convincing North Korea to abandon her ambitions to develop a nuclear arsenal," Mr Bush told reporters after attending Easter services at a military base in Texas.

The US, North Korea and China are due to hold talks in Beijing this week to try to end the six-month standoff over Pyongyang's nuclear programme.

The key thing in the North Korea agenda is that China is assuming a very important responsibility

President George W Bush

The meeting was thrown into doubt on Friday, when an English-language statement from North Korea's foreign ministry apparently said Pyongyang had started reprocessing thousands of spent fuel rods.

However a later translation by US analysts, taken from a Korean-language statement, said the North was on the verge of reprocessing, not that the work had begun.

In the wake of those reports, US officials said they would consult South Korea, Japan and China, about whether to go ahead with the talks - which have been tentatively set for 23-25 April.

Stand off

But on Sunday, Mr Bush expressed optimism about the talks.

"The key thing in the North Korea agenda is that China is assuming a very important responsibility," he said.

NORTH KOREA NUCLEAR PROGRAMME

Yongbyon: Five megawatt experimental nuclear power reactor and a partially completed plutonium extraction facility. Activities at site frozen under 1994 Agreed Framework

Taechon: 200-MWt nuclear power reactor - construction halted under Agreed Framework

Pyongyang: Laboratory-scale "hot cells" that may have been used to extract small quantities of plutonium

Kumho: Two 1,000-MWt light water reactors being built under Agreed Framework

Speaking at a military base in Fort Hood, Texas, he said the Chinese government was committed to working towards a nuclear-free Korean peninsula.

The President added that South Korea and Japan shared the same goal.

The BBC's Nick Bryant in Washington says the statement signals that Mr Bush wants the talks to go ahead.

The latest crisis began in October, when Washington said North Korea had admitted to a clandestine nuclear weapons programme.

President Bush later suspended oil aid shipments to the North under a 1994 agreement designed to prevent Pyongyang from developing nuclear weapons.

In December, North Korea restarted its nuclear facilities, expelled UN inspectors and withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Earlier this month, Pyongyang signalled it may be ready to end its insistence on direct talks with the US as the only way to resolve the crisis.