S Korean press gloomy about talks

South Korea's newspapers have low expectations for outcome of talks

Newspapers in South Korea have little confidence that the talks between Pyongyang, Washington and Beijing will end successfully.

There is widespread belief that North Korean and US actions in the run up have destroyed any hope of resolving the nuclear issue during the three-day talks starting on Wednesday.

The moderate Tong-a Ilbo expresses concern over the "mounting crisis" right before the talks.

The Beijing meeting will merely confirm or amplify the North Korean-US conflict

Hangyore

The paper believes this crisis was caused by two factors: North Korea's announcement that it was in the final stage of reprocessing spent nuclear fuel rods; and a memo from US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in which he called for Washington to team up with Beijing to topple the Pyongyang government.

It urges the US and North Korea "at least not to worsen the situation at the trilateral talks" and says that "merely listening to and correctly sounding out each other's intention would be a significant result".

Rumsfeld memo

The pro-government Taehan Maeil describes the Rumsfeld memo as "an arrogant act," fearing that will "pour cold water on the trilateral talks".

The North's old brinkmanship strategy will no longer work

Chungang Ilbo

Although President George W Bush has called for a diplomatic resolution to the current crisis, "the conflict between the hardliners and moderates in Washington makes us suspicious about the credibility and sincerity of the US policy toward North Korea," it says.

The left-of-center Hangyore also casts doubt on the US sincerity and believes that the North Korean announcement on nuclear reprocessing will have given further ammunition to the hardliners within the Washington administration.

The Beijing talks will be a meeting "merely to confirm or amplify the North Korean-US conflict," the paper laments.

End to brinkmanship

Several papers believe that the success of the talks lies with North Korea.

The Taehan Maeil describes the nuclear reprocessing announcement as "an undesirable thing which could undermine the North's credibility". It urges Pyongyang to demonstrate a "sincere attitude" during the talks.

The mass-circulation Choson Ilbo calls for Pyongyang to show a "significant change" in its policies to convince the parties involved that the negotiations are worth continuing.

The moderate Chungang Ilbo stresses that the North's "old brinkmanship strategy" will no longer work.

The papers are unanimous in their view that - no matter what the outcome of the talks - resolving the nuclear issue will be a long, drawn-out process.

Hangyore states that the talks will be "merely the start of a long and rough march". Chungang Ilbo notes that it took 19 months to conclude the 1994 North-US nuclear agreement.

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.