US envoy sees N Korean ‘progress’

Bill Richardson thinks it could be time to re-engage North Korea in six-nation talks

The American politician Bill Richardson has said the North Koreans are now moving in the right direction.

Mr Richardson, now in Beijing after a “positive” trip to Pyongyang, said the North had shown pragmatism by not reacting to a South Korean drill.

On Monday, he said the North had agreed to allow international inspectors into its nuclear facilities.

The North shelled a southern island last month after similar drills and had threatened more retaliation this time.

Pyongyang said after Monday’s live-firing military drill that it was not worth responding to, a decision praised by the United States.

“My sense is the North Koreans realise that they have moved too negatively against negotiations, that they have taken some very bad steps and they wanted to move in the right direction,” Mr Richardson said.

“They agreed to the proposals that I made…. Now there has to be deeds, not words.

“They have shown, I believe, a step in the right direction. I think it is important that a new effort at re-engagement takes place among the six-party countries,” he added.

North Korea’s closest ally, China, has been pressing for a return to the six-party talks about North Korea’s nuclear programmes, but the US, South Korea and Japan have wanted to avoid rewarding the North for what they see as its provocative behaviour.

Yeonpyeong residents were ordered into bunkers before the exercise

Mr Richardson is a former US ambassador to the United Nations who has served as an unofficial envoy to North Korea in the past.

The New Mexico governor, who was in Pyongyang in an unofficial capacity, said he had been told during meetings that members of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) would be allowed renewed access to a uranium enrichment facility.

There has been no official comment from the North, and it is unclear which facility Mr Richardson was referring to.

Inspectors, who had been monitoring the Yongbyon nuclear plant, were expelled from the country in April 2009.

UN Security Council talks on North Korea ended without a deal at the weekend, reportedly after China refused to agree to a statement critical of its ally.

The South’s government has been under huge domestic pressure to take a tough stance towards Pyongyang, in the wake of the 23 November shelling of the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong, which killed four people.

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