Seeking to project a united front, Japan, the United States and South Korea prepared yesterday for talks with North Korea on its nuclear programmes amid focus on Pyongyang?s uranium development. Envoys to the six-way talks, which also involve China and Russia, converged on Beijing amid hopes the first round of discussions on the crisis since last August could lay a foundation to move forward.

Analysts and diplomats held out scant hope of a breakthrough at the talks starting tomorrow, citing lack of trust between the United States and North Korea, protagonists in a dispute that has stoked regional tensions since late 2002.

But the Russian delegation, led by Deputy Foreign Minister, Alexander Losyukov, expressed cautious optimism amid signs the talks could go beyond the originally expected three days.

?We have some hopes for the better,? Losyukov told reporters after touching down in China?s capital. The US and Japanese delegations came yesterday, and the South and North Koreans are expected today. The first round of talks in Beijing failed to narrow the gap and it has taken six months to bring the delegations back to the negotiating table. North Korea, branded by Washington part of an ?axis of evil? along with Iran and pre-war Iraq, proposed last month a freeze in its nuclear activities in return for aid and diplomatic concessions from its neighbours and the United States as a first step towards a resolution of the dispute.

But Washington, Tokyo and Seoul have made clear to Pyongyang that the Beijing talks must cover not only North Korea?s plutonium-based nuclear arms programme, but a second suspected bomb-making scheme based on highly enriched uranium.

North Korea denies it has a programme for enriching uranium to make bomb fuel. The United States says Pyongyang officials acknowledged such a programme in October 2002 when confronted with evidence presented by US officials and only later denied it in the face of international criticism. ?I think we understand each others? positions quite well, but it?s important to do this,? Assistant Secretary of State, James Kelly, the chief US delegate, told his Japanese and South Korean counterparts when they met in Seoul. ?The biggest thing the second round of six-party talks can accomplish is to maintain the peaceful dialogue and push it forward,? said Piao Jianyi, a North Korea expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. ?But we can?t hope for any really big steps or decisive developments. I don?t see those happening.?

Jonathan Ansfield

Paul Eckert