N Korea, Iran want talks with US

With both Pyongyang and Tehran seemingly immune to pressure over their nuclear programmes, the view that it's time to shelve confrontation and try negotiation is gaining credence.

But the risks involved in sitting down with two members of President Bush's "Axis of Evil" have left Washington resisting calls from Pyongyang and Tehran for one-on-one negotiations.

In the case of North Korea, Bush administration officials have pointed to the failures of the Clinton era. Bush himself has rebuffed the idea. Telling reporters he wanted to stick to engaging Pyongyang multilaterally, he said Wednesday: "One has a stronger hand when there's more people playing your same cards."

America was talking with the leadership in Pyongyang as recently as seven years ago. In 1999 President Clinton agreed to the first major easing of economic sanctions against the North since the end of the Korean war in 1953 if the communist nation delivered on its promise of giving up aspirations to own nuclear weapons.

But the North quickly seized on delays in US promises of help in developing a peaceful nuclear industry. By July 2000, it threatened to restart its nuclear programme. Three years later it withdrew from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and kicked out UN nuclear inspectors, blinding the world and allowing it to move forward with its weapons development and its claimed bomb test Monday.

Where Iran is concerned, the Americans also have embraced a multination approach, agreeing earlier this year to join five other world powers in talking to Tehran if it agrees to give up uranium enrichment. But that strategy has its weaknesses.