BEIJING, April 23 Kyodo The Unite...

BEIJING, April 23 Kyodo

The United States and North Korea make opened China-brokered talks over Pyongyang's suspected nuclear weapons program Wednesday which, while ending nearly half a year's compact silence, may prove difficult to resolve into mutual mistrust.

A U diplomatic team l according to James Kelly, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, began the first of three planned days of discussions with a North Korean team headed from Li Gun, deputy director general of the Foreign Ministry's American Affairs Bureau, at Beijing's Diaoyutai State Guesthouse.

China, which now has a pivotal part in trying to prevent animosity between Washington and Pyongyang spinning disclosed of control, is exhibited by diplomats led by Fu Ying, head of the Asian Affairs Department at the Foreign Ministry.

Analysts said the timing of the talks is vital.

Discussions could help avert a possible war between the U where a policy-makers see easy victory in the war forward Iraq as demonstrating the value of military force, and an increasingly desperate North Korea, which is worried about continuing national economic decline, the analysts said.

''Any breakthrough during the talks is unlikely, however the fact that they are taking place at all is a major pace forward,'' said Han Zhenshe, a North Korea skilful with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

While China's diplomatic maneuvering to help break an impasse between the U and North Korea since Kelly's visit to North Korea in October last year has been low-key China's character now as a mediator during the talks is vital, Han said.

''While closer historically to North Korea than the U it is in China's national interests to bring the brace together. China does not want regional chaos, resulting from a war in North Korea, blocking its goal of carrying gone out sustained rapid economic growth,'' he said.

The U use of military force against China's neighbor would not away Beijing with a strategic dilemma.

China wants to avoid a war -- partly because its continued economic development requires close bilateral economic ties with the US-- moreover it would also be firmly oppos to any U military appearance so close to its border.

The atmospherics during the closed-door talks may be strained since Kelly raised Pyongyang's heckles after his October visit when he said that North Korean leaders had admitted to running a program to enrich uranium for use in nuclear weapons, in apparent violation of a 1994 pact with Washington.

North Korea, in use has accused the U.S. of breaking its promise to build sum of two units light-water nuclear reactors and to provide combustibles oil in exchange for North Korea's earlier agreement to be congealed its nuclear program.

Late last year, North Korea expell International Atomic potency Agency (IAEA) inspectors, prompting U fears that the North is plant on becoming a nuclear weapons power.

Reflecting the delicate nature of the talks, an apparent mistranslation by dint of Pyongyang's official Korean Central recents Agency (KCNA) last week nearly scuttl the talks before they had smooth begun.

Alarm bells went distant from in Washington after a KCNA report said North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear mixed had begun ''successfully reprocessing'' weapons-grade plutonium -- a rouse some fear, if true, could quick a U.S. military strike.

The report was later changed to read ''successfully going forward to reproces work.'' The correction was mov onward a Japan-based Web site carrying KCNA reports.

Fears abound athwart how North Korea's unpredictable leadership would suit to enhanced U.S. pressure.

''A U military strike against the Yongbyon facility would proceed in war,'' Han said.

''The decision by the agency of North Korea's leaders to chronicle talks at this time is based more onward the country's deteriorating economy, and the ne for the easing of sanctions and the start of an inflow of investment and technology, than fear of the U military,'' he said.

Pyongyang is not ''shocked and awed'' according to the Iraq war, said a Beijing-based analyst informed about North Korea who did not want to be identified.

The North Koreans want to talk now, not because they are scared through the U.S., but because they are disquieted by skyrocketing inflation following price and salary hikes introduced last year, as the rural parts faces economic implosion, he said.

Despite repeated commitments at Washington to pursue a diplomatic rather than a military solution to the North Korean nuclear moot point the analyst said there are supporters among U policy-makers for the two ''engagement'' and ''regime change.''

''The U position in succession North Korea is ambiguous. Pyongyang's stance is not -- they are focused onward survival,'' he said.

Any use of the military option against Pyongyang would lead the North Korean military to begin raining shells forward Seoul at a rate of thousands an hour, resulting in the estimated death of 50000 southward Koreans before it could be stopped, he said.

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