North Korea said it wants to build trust and respect with its greatest foe, the United States, at six-country talks next week aimed at ending Pyongyang's pursuit of nuclear weapons, its media reported on Monday. North Korea also hinted at having the Beijing negotiations examine Washington's deployment of its nuclear arsenal.
Analysts said this echoed a demand Pyongyang made in March to turn the talks into a broad nuclear disarmament discussion, which could scuttle the entire process if Pyongyang presses the point in Beijing because patience among key players is wearing thin.
The negotiations, which the reclusive North has boycotted for over a year, will begin on July 26 in Beijing but no date has been set for the discussions to end, a South Korean daily said.
North Korea said earlier this month it would return to the talks with China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States in the week of July 25, but it gave no exact date.
"What is most essential for making progress in the six-party talks ... is for the DPRK and the US to build the relationship of trust and a will for mutual respect and co-existence," the North's Rodong Sinmun said in a commentary carried by Pyongyang's official KCNA news agency .
DPRK is short for the country's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
South Korea has proposed providing the North with electricity supplies roughly equal to its own output if Pyongyang abandons its nuclear ambitions. But Seoul feels Washington will be the force behind any negotiated deal.
"It's the United States that holds the final key," South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun said in a meeting in Seoul with former US secretary of state Colin Powell.