North Korea says it may be ready to talk again,
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A State Department spokesman said Monday that any bilateral meeting with the North can only be part of the six-party talks that include China, Japan, Russia, and South Korea.
But North Korea has declared those talks dead.
North Korea took what some view as a small step back from confrontation Monday, offering the possibility of dialogue to ease tensions.
However,
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A North Korean news announcer speaks of "another method" of settling recent tensions.
That other method,
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The dialogue offer is being seen,
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Yoon Duk-min,
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The United States has stated repeatedly that it will never accept North Korea as a nuclear weapons state. On Sunday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton repeated that the multilateral framework was the only way to engage North Korea.
North Korea has asserted for years that its nuclear weapons program is a problem to be resolved only between itself and the United States. President Barak Obama, like his predecessor George W. Bush, maintains the nuclear issue is of vital concern to North Korea's neighbors - China, Russia, Japan, and South Korea.
Lee Sang-hyun,
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Lee says North Korea needs to take some positive action rather than just issue statements. For example, he says, North Korea should take the initiative in inviting the U.S. to discuss two American journalists being detained in the North - an invitation Washington would find difficult to decline.