The first talks between North Korea and the United States since the death of Kim Jong-il made a “good start,” but there is still a “long way” to go before the six-party talks on ending the North’s nuclear weapons program can resume, a U.S. nuclear envoy said Saturday.

After two days of talks with his North Korean counterpart, Kim Kye-gwan, in Beijing, Glyn Davies flew to Seoul to brief South Korean officials on the outcome of the negotiations. In Seoul, he met with his South Korean counterpart Lim Sung-nam on Saturday.

“I think it is significant that in a relatively short period of time after change in leadership in the North, the (North) decided to reengage,” Davies told a news conference after a meetng with Lim.

The Beijing talks, the first since the December death of the North’s longtime leader, were widely seen as a chance to gauge whether Pyongyang’s new regime under young leader Kim Jong-un is open to negotiations to give up its nuclear ambition.

Ending two days of discussions with North Korea in Beijing on Friday, Davies cited “a little bit of progress,” but no breakthrough. He declined to elaborate.

Asked about the prospect of the resumption of the six-nation talks when he arrived in Seoul earlier in the day, Davies replied, “We are so long away from anything like that.”

The six-party talks, which involve the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia, were last held in Beijing in late 2008.

Shortly before Kim’s death, North Korea and the U.S. appeared to be ready to announce a breakthrough in the stalled six-nation talks.

North Korea and the U.S. had been poised to reach a deal in which Pyongyang would halt its uranium enrichment program in return for a resumption of Washington’s food assistance.

Davies said North Korean offcials raised the issue of food assistance during the Beijing talks and the U.S. would make a decision, “based on need, based on availability of assistance it provides,” adding there is “no direct linkage between the nuclear issue and the issue of nutritional assistance.”

This week’s talks between the U.S. and North Korea were the third of their kind since last July. During the period, Seoul and Pyongyang also held two rounds of bilateral nuclear talks before the death of Kim.

Lim, the South Korean envoy who was also present at the news conference, said that he hopes for a third round of talks with North Korea.

“The U.S.-North Korea talks were useful and I hope that a third round of talks with North Korea could be held in the process of resuming the six-party talks,” Lim said.

North Korea has not shown any signs of giving up its nuclear programs. The North recently praised its late leader for elevating the country to a nuclear state. North Korea conducted two nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009, drawing international condemnation and tightened U.N. sanctions.

South Korea and the U.S. have insisted the North accept a monitored shutdown of its uranium enrichment program to show sincerity toward denuclearization before reviving the disarmament-for-aid talks.

In 2010, North Korea revealed it was running a uranium enrichment facility. Highly enriched uranium can be used to make weapons, providing Pyongyang with a second way to build nuclear bombs in addition to its existing plutonium program.

Davies, who was the first U.S. diplomat to have face-to-face negotiations with North Korean officials since the death of Kim Jong-il, said he noticed no change in the North’s negotiating style, despite the leadership change.

“Wat we found in our two days of discussions with the DPRK side was more continuity, more similarity than difference, both in terms of positions articulated by the DPRK side and in terms of style,” he said.

“It struck me that we were in fact dealing with very much same set of issues and same negotiating styles with which we are familiar,” Davies said. 

(Yonhap News)