N. Korea, US to meet again Friday

North Korea and the US Envoys held "substantive and serious" talks in Beijing on Thursday over the North's nuclear weapons program, US chief negotiator Glyn Davies said. Seoul's Yonhap News Agency reported that Davies also said the rare bilateral dialogue will be extended by one day. The Beijing talks, the first since the December death of the North's former leader Kim Jong-il, are widely seen as a chance to gauge whether Pyongyang's new young leader, Kim Jong-un, is open to negotiations to get the communist regime to give up its nuclear ambitions. Davies told reporters he and his North Korean counterpart Kim Kye-gwan discussed "quite a number of the issues" and plan to hold more talks in the Chinese capital on Friday, according to Yonhap. The North's chief envoy Kim also described the Thursday meeting as "positive," saying both sides took part in the talks with a "serious attitude." Davies said he would hold a dinner meeting with the North Korean delegation. The six-party talks, which involve the two Koreas, the US, China, Japan and Russia, were last held in Beijing in late 2008. Shortly before the death of Kim, North Korea and the US appeared to be ready to announce a breakthrough that could have led to a resumption of the six-nation talks. North Korea and the US had been poised to reach a deal in which Pyongyang would halt its uranium enrichment program in return for a resumption of Washington's food assistance. In Washington, US State Department spokesman Mark Toner described the Beijing meeting as "exploratory talks." Toner said the issue of resuming US food aid to North Korea would be discussed during the Beijing talks. North Korea conducted two nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009, drawing international condemnation and tightened UN sanctions. South Korea and the US have insisted the North accept a monitored shutdown of its uranium enrichment program to show sincerity toward denuclearization before reviving the disarmament-for-aid talks. In 2010, North Korea revealed it was running a uranium enrichment facility. Highly enriched uranium can be used to make weapons, providing Pyongyang with a second way to build nuclear bombs in addition to its existing plutonium program.