U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly, on a mission to help defuse a nuclear crisis with communist North Korea, said on Monday Washington was still willing to talk Pyongyang. "We are of course willing to talk to North Korea about their response to the international community (over their nuclear program)," the top U.S. envoy on Asia told reporters in the South Korean capital, Seoul. He said there may be opportunities to address the North's acute fuel shortage once the nuclear dispute is resolved.

In what appears to be a game of brinkmanship to force the United States to the negotiating table, Pyongyang has thrown out U.N. weapons inspectors, pulled out of a global treaty preventing the spread of nuclear arms and said it was free to resume missile-firing tests.

The United States has said it is willing to talk to the North, but not to negotiate.

Efforts to Defuse N.Korea Nuclear Crisis Intensify

Meanwhile, regional diplomatic efforts intensified.

Japan's Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary, Shinzo Abe, told Fuji Television from Khabarovsk, Russia, that Pyongyang was "playing a dangerous game," but the issue could be resolved through talks.

And Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, having consulted with Russian President Vladimir Putin, met in eastern Russia with Konstantin Pulikovsky, a point man on North Korea who is believed to have close ties to its reclusive leader, Kim Jong-il.

"It is important that North Korea be steadfastly worked upon to gain a peaceful solution," Koizumi said.

Pyongyang urged all Koreans to rid the peninsula of the U.S. presence, part of a drive to build on differences between South Korea and the United States sparked by mounting anti-American sentiment.

PHOTO CAPTION

South Korean President-elect Roh Moo-hyun (R) meets U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly in Seoul Jan. 13, 2003. Kelly, the top U.S. envoy for Asia began talks with South Korea  on Monday to hammer out a joint approach to defusing an escalating nuclear crisis in the North as Washington mobilizes for a possible war with Iraq. (Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)