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On one hand, the United Sates has sent its team to North Korea to finalize the terms of Pyongyang's long-delayed list of its nuclear activities, after scaling back its demands about what North Korea has to declare.
On the other hand, the Bush administration is preparing to make public video evidence of Pyongyang's nuclear cooperation with Syria, a move that could boost the position of hard-liners and upset Washington's policy toward the North.
The moves come after the United States and North Korea reached a "tentative" agreement on Pyongyang's nuclear declaration at a meeting earlier this month in Singapore, which has triggered a backlash from conservative critics in Washington.
Neither Washington nor Pyongyang has disclosed the content of the April 8 accord, but news reports said the deal calls for the North to submit a declaration on its plutonium production and simply "acknowledge" U.S. concerns about a uranium-based program and proliferation to Syria.
The deal was widely considered a concession by the U.S. side, with critics accusing the Bush administration of selling out in order to gain a diplomatic achievement by ending the North Korean nuclear crisis before he leaves office in January 2009.
For its part, North Korea seems satisfied with what it dubbed the "Singapore consensus" on "the U.S. measure to make political compensation and the nuclear declaration essential for winding up the implementation of the (previous) agreement."
North Korea again expressed its satisfaction this week when a team of U.S. diplomats and nuclear experts traveled to Pyongyang to follow up the Singapore deal.
The Foreign Ministry said on Thursday that the two sides made progress in three days of talks with the visiting U.S. team led by Sung Kim, the State Department director of the Office of Korean Affairs.
"The negotiations proceeded in a sincere and constructive manner and progress was made," a ministry spokesman told Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency. "Technical matters, including the contents of the nuclear declaration, were discussed," the spokesman said, without further details.
The statement came just after the U.S. delegation crossed the heavily-guarded border into the South. Upon arriving in Seoul, Sung Kim said he had "substantive discussion" in the North. The team is scheduled to fly back to Washington on Friday.
Earlier, South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan said the U.S. team was conducting the "last work" on securing North Korea's declaration of its nuclear activities.
He also expressed hope that the visit would lead to the resumption of the long-stalled six-way talks which also involve China, Russia and Japan. "If work is done as scheduled, I expect six-party talks to be held again within May so that the momentum can be maintained," Yu told a group of senior diplomats on Wednesday.
The six-nation talks on ending the North's nuclear weapons drive have been stalled since Pyongyang missed an end-of-2007 deadline to give a complete accounting of its nuclear programs, as called for in a major six-way nuclear deal reached in February in 2007.
"Six-party talks must be resumed within next month, given political timetables in the United States," a ministry official said, noting the U.S. presidential election in November would make it difficult for Washington to implement any significant agreements after August.
But the hope may be dented as U.S. intelligence officials in Washington were set to tell lawmakers later Thursday that Pyongyang had shared nuclear technology with Syria. The briefing is expected to include video shot inside the Syrian nuclear facility which shows North Korean faces, according to U.S. news reports.
Last September, Israel destroyed the site in Syria after U.S. intelligence reportedly determined it housed a plutonium-producing nuclear reactor being constructed with North Korean help. Pyongyang denies any nuclear connection with Syria.
Any clear evidence of a nuclear connection is likely to constrain the Bush administration's rush for a greater nuclear deal, as conservative critics have pointed to alleged North Korean proliferation to Syria as grounds for opposing the six-party accord.
Though the Bush administration has decided to focus its anti-nuclear efforts on dismantling the plutonium-based program, the main part of the North's nuclear weapons drive, a dispute about its plutonium stockpile could also stall the disarmament process, analysts in Seoul say.
According to Japan's Tokyo Shimbun newspaper, North Korea has told the United States that it has produced a total of around 30 kilograms of plutonium, which falls short of U.S. estimates of 50 kilograms.
"The United States and North Korea still lack mutual trust, which could hinder the process of verifying the North's plutonium stockpile and other nuclear-related activities," said Lee Sang-Hyun, a researcher at Seoul's private Sejong Institute. "It would take more than two years to verify the extent of the North's nuclear program," he said.
