BEIJING (AP) – From the start, North Korean officials made clear to their U.S. dinner companion what was on their mind: assurances the U.S. had no plans to attack and that it recognized North Korea’s sovereignty.

U.S. diplomat Christopher Hill obliged during the “steak and cheesecake” dinner at a government restaurant and soon heard the ranking North Korean at the table say his government was willing to resume nuclear disarmament talks this month.

For more than a year, North Korea had shown contempt for the six-nation negotiating process by boycotting it. That has caused jitters in Washington and throughout Asia.

Participants at the Saturday night dinner raised a toast to the success of the revived diplomatic endeavor. Yet there are no guarantees the next round of talks would be any more productive than the first three, held in 2003 and 2004.

The new round will open in the Chinese capital during the week of July 25.

At the time of the dinner detente, Condoleezza Rice was nearing Beijing, where she planned talks with Chinese leaders about North Korea. Hill called the chief U.S. diplomat on her government plane just before the end of her 20-hour trip from Washington.

Hill, who heads the State Department’s East Asia bureau, told Rice that the North Koreans had said their negotiators were intent on making progress toward the establishment of a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.

If North Korea is sincere, it would represent a major policy shift for a country that is believed to have at least two nuclear weapons – and maybe several more.

North Korea withdrew from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in early 2003 and said it needs nuclear arms as a way to deter a possible U.S. attack.

The pending resumption of the talks was a rare bit of good news for the Bush administration on a highly troublesome issue. But Rice, while welcoming the North’s decision, said it was just a first step.

“It is not the goal of the talks to have talks. The goal of the talks is to have progress,” Rice told reporters Sunday.

“The issue now is for North Korea to make the strategic choice to give up its nuclear weapons program,” she said before leaving for Thailand, her second stop on a four-country Asia swing that also includes visits to Japan and South Korea.

She added that the nuclear impasse was a concern not only of the U.S. but also its partners in the negotiations: China, Japan, Russia and South Korea.

South Korea’s main nuclear negotiator, Deputy Foreign Minister Song Min-soon, said Sunday that the North’s imminent return to the arms talks was the “fruit of the efforts” of all countries involved.

Japan reacted cautiously. “We hope that North Korea has a sincere and constructive attitude” at the talks and that they lead to “substantive” progress, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said in a statement.

North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying the resumption of talks “is important, but the most essential thing is for … an in-depth discussion on ways of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula to make substantial progress in the talks.”

North Korea “will do its utmost for it,” according to the report.

Rice said a “tremendous flurry of diplomatic activity” – led by China and South Korea – contributed to North Korea’s change of heart. U.S. officials also believe that the North’s continuing economic woes may have contributed.

The officials point out that infrastructure investments by China in North Korea are way down. So, too, is aid from South Korea.

By getting rid of its nuclear weapons program and having that verified, North Korea should be able to count on substantial economic help from the China and South Korea as well as the U.S. and Japan.

Rice arrived in Thailand on Sunday night, landing in the resort city of Phuket. On Monday, she planned to review efforts to rebuild coastal areas devastated by last December’s tsunami.

AP-ES-07-10-05 1334EDT

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