Pressure mounts on North Korea for nuclear talks

BEIJING/WACO, Texas, Thursday (Reuters) U.S. President George W. Bush urged North Korea to return to six-party negotiations on its nuclear programme "for the sake of peace and tranquility", adding to pressure on Pyongyang from key ally China to rejoin the talks.

Bush was speaking at a news conference at Waco, Texas, on Wednesday after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice returned from a tour of Asia during which she said Washington could not wait forever for Pyongyang to return to the talks.

He was speaking while North Korean Premier Pak Pong-ju was on a visit to China, which is seen as crucial to the future of the six-party talks. Pak was en route to Shanghai from Beijing on Thursday.

Bush denied setting a June deadline for the resumption of the talks and said the five nations that have been negotiating with Pyongyang - the United States, China, Japan, South Korea and Russia - were united in seeking North Korea's return to the negotiating table. "I'm a patient person. And so are a lot of people that are involved in this issue. But the leader of North Korea must understand that when we five nations speak, we mean what we say," Bush said.

"There is a way forward, I repeat, for Kim Jong-il. And it's his choice to make. We've made our choice. China has made its choice. The other countries have made their choices," Bush said.

"And for the sake of peace and tranquility and stability in the Far East, Kim Jong-il must listen," he said. China, which hosted three inconclusive rounds of the talks last year and exerts considerable influence on Pyongyang as its predominant supplier of food and oil, also upped the pressure when Pak met Chinese President Hu Jintao in Beijing on Wednesday.

"It is in our common interests to stick to a nuclear weapon- free Korean Peninsula, resolve DPRK's rational concerns, and maintain peace and stability on the peninsula," Hu said, according to a report from state news agency Xinhua. Pak passed on a letter from North Korean leader Kim to the Chinese president, who was also likely to have pressed Pak to make good on comments that the North also supports the talks.

On Tuesday, Pak told Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao the North had not abandoned the process. "The Korean side does not oppose the six-party talks, nor has it given up on the talks.

If conditions are mature, the North Korean side is prepared to join the six-party talks at any time," Chinese TV quoted him as saying.

In Tokyo, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi made similar remarks - although he would not rule out the U.N. option entirely.

"I believe North Korea will return to the six-party talks ... We need not refer it to the U.N. Security Council now," he told reporters on Wednesday.

He said, however, that it would be an option to bring the case to the international body if Pyongyang refused to return to the six-party talks for too long.