BEIJING -- North Korea agreed Tuesday to return to multilateral talks aimed at dismantling its nuclear program, three weeks after it tested a nuclear weapon.
The announcement marked a sudden turnaround for North Korea and came amid signs that China had leaned heavily on its neighbor, even slashing vital oil supplies.
Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, the senior U.S. envoy on the nuclear crisis, said he spent seven hours in meetings with his Chinese and North Korean counterparts before obtaining agreement from Pyongyang that it would return to the talks.
"What was important is that they have not made any conditions for attending the talks," Hill said, adding that new negotiations are likelyto occur by December or perhaps earlier.
Hill was asked repeatedly at a news conference how China persuaded North Korea to yield, but he declined to comment. As recently as last week, North Korea insisted that it would return to the talks only if Washington lifted financial restrictions, which were imposed 13 months ago after U.S. officials accused North Korea of counterfeiting U.S. currency.
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President Bush said resumption of the talks was a positive step, but that much difficult work needed to be done before negotiations occur. "We'll continue to resolve this in a peaceful way," Bush said at the White House.
Russia welcomed the breakthrough as "very positive," but Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso warned that Pyongyang shouldn't return to talks boasting of its nuclear prowess, after the Oct. 9 test that made it the globe's eighth declared nuclear power.
Earlier in the day, before word of the diplomatic breakthrough, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao denied that China had cut oil deliveries to North Korea.
Chinese trade data released earlier this week indicated that China traded no oil with North Korea in September. China normally supplies its neighbor with most of its energy needs. But North Korea's threat to test a nuclear weapon angered China, and five days after the test, Beijing joined in unanimous approval of U.N. Security Council sanctions.
