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"After the 60-day period" means once North Korea shuts down its nuclear facilities at Yongbyon and gets 50,000 tons of heavy oil from South Korea, and “the next step” under the agreement is “disabling” the nuclear facilities. That is a process of making the nuclear facilities useless, and thus goes much further than shutting them down. Once disabled, it would take a great deal of time and money to get them to work again. If North Korea's chief negotiator Kim Kye-gwan discussed this step with Hill during the talks, it suggests North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has made the “strategic decision” to abandon nuclear development, a government official in Seoul said. That reading is backed by a hint from Kim Kye-gwan that it may be possible to negotiate on the North’s alleged uranium enrichment program.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill (second from right) speaks to reporters after meeting with his North Korean counterpart Kim Kye-gwan in New York on Tuesday. /AFP-Yonhap

Kim Keun-sik, a professor of North Korean studies at Kyungnam University, said Kim Jong-il is “highly likely” to make a positive decision if the U.S. recognizes his regime and offers security guarantees.

But not everyone is so sanguine. Yoon Duk-min of Seoul’s Institute for Foreign Affairs and National Security said, "What is being mainly discussed between the U.S. and North Korea is already stipulated in the Feb. 13 six-party agreement. There doesn’t seem to be anything new." In other words, it is jumping the gun to speculate about Kim Jong-il’s intentions, since Washington and Pyongyang don't have to focus on their differences for the moment. An academic with another state-run think tank in Seoul said, "In a New Year's statement in January, North Korea emphasized that it succeeded in conducting a nuclear test after decades of effort. I don't think Kim Jong-il will so readily abandon his nuclear weapons."

Hill also implied the possibility of intensive discussion of a peace agreement at the next round of the six-party talks that starts on March 19 and in a ministerial conference of the participating countries slated for next month, saying these matters were also touched on in the New York talks.

North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan returns to his hotel after meeting with his U.S. counterpart Christopher Hill in New York on Tuesday./AP-Yonhap

Kim Kye-gwan also looked pleased with the outcome. "We exchanged various views, including normalization of the (North) Korea-U.S. relations. The atmosphere was very good, constructive and serious." In a seminar at the Korea Society the previous day, Kim hinted he suggested a meeting between U.S. President George W. Bush and Kim Jong-il. "The shortcut to the normalization of the (North) Korea-U.S. relations is a meeting between top officials in (North) Korea and the United States,” he said.

Hill said North Korea did not seem interested in setting up liaison offices in the other’s capital as an interim phase in normalizing relations, an indication that the two will proceed directly to establishing formal diplomatic relations if Pyongyang really disables the nuclear facilities. USA Today said some former U.S. diplomats and foreign policy experts Kim met in New York were “optimistic the U.S. and North Korea would agree to formal relations before President Bush leaves office in January 2009.”

(englishnews@chosun.com )