NKorean official to go to US for nuclear talks (AP)

By MATTHEW LEE and FOSTER KLUG, Associated Press Matthew Lee And Foster Klug, Associated Press – 1?hr?43?mins?ago

BALI, Indonesia – A senior North Korean official will visit the United States this week to discuss the possible resumption of long-stalled international negotiations on ending Pyongyang's nuclear programs, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Sunday.

The news that diplomats could be close to reviving six-nation disarmament talks that broke off in 2008 comes after more than a year of animosity and high tension between the rival Koreas and raises hopes in a region on edge. Two attacks Seoul blames on Pyongyang last year killed 50 South Koreans and led to threats of war.

Clinton's invitation for North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan to visit New York follows a crucial meeting Friday between nuclear negotiators from North and South Korea on the sidelines of a regional forum of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, in Bali. It was the first such meeting since disarmament talks collapsed in 2008, and the envoys agreed to work toward the resumption of six-nation negotiations.

The recent diplomacy comes after more than a year of hardline unity by Washington and Seoul since international investigators said a North Korean torpedo sank a South Korean warship in March of last year, killing 46 sailors. The South demanded the North show regret for the warship sinking and an artillery attack on a front-line South Korean island that killed four in November.

North Korea denies a role in the sinking and says South Korea provoked the island shelling. While refusing to apologize, however, Pyongyang has repeatedly shown a willingness to return to the disarmament talks. The North is seen as needing a diplomatic breakthrough and outside food aid ahead of the 2012 centennial of the birth of the country's founder, Kim Il Sung.

"We are open to talks with North Korea, but we do not intend to reward the North just for returning to the table," Clinton said in a statement announcing Kim Kye Gwan's trip to the U.S. "We will not give them anything new for actions they have already agreed to take. And we have no appetite for pursuing protracted negotiations that will only lead us right back to where we have already been."

The wariness is in line with past U.S. statements that ally Seoul must be satisfied with the North's sincerity before Washington will act.

During Kim's trip, he will meet with a team of U.S. officials to explore his country's commitment to returning to the international talks and taking concrete steps toward disarmament, Clinton said in the statement.

It was unclear what days Kim, the North's former chief nuclear envoy, will visit New York. The announcement follows an earlier meeting between Clinton and the foreign ministers of South Korea and Japan in Bali.

The nuclear negotiations involve the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia.

North Korean Foreign Minister Pak Ui Chun said in comments released Sunday by the country's state media that the Korean peninsula now stands "on the crossroads of detente and the vicious cycle of escalating tension."

The countries involved, Pak said, must "make the best use of (the) opportunity of dialogue and make a bold decision to settle the fundamental issue."

Diplomats have been eager for the two rivals to ease tensions.

Since the last round of talks, North Korea has conducted a second nuclear test and revealed a uranium enrichment facility that could give it another way to make atomic bombs.

Recent North Korean threats against Seoul's conservative government include a pledge to retaliate over South Korean soldiers' use of pictures of the ruling North Korean family for target practice.

The two Koreas remain in a technical state of war because their three-year conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, in 1953. The United States has 28,500 troops in the South. That presence is cited by the North as a main factor behind its need to build a nuclear program.

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Klug reported from Seoul, South Korea.

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State Department background on North Korea: http://www.state.gov/p/eap/ci/kn/

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MP, top Karzai aide feared killed: police official (Reuters)

KABUL (Reuters) – Gunmen killed a top advisor to Afghan President Hamid Karzai and a member of the country's parliament in a residential district of Kabul on Sunday, just days after the president's brother was gunned down at home, officials said.

The spokesman for Kabul's police chief said two or three armed men started a gun battle around 8 o'clock at the house of Jan Mohammad Khan, a former governor of southern Uruzgan province and close aide to the president.

"The battle between gunmen and security forces is still going on," spokesman Hashmat Stanekzai said, adding that the attack began around 8.00 pm local time (1530 GMT).

Lawmaker Hashim Watanwal was also killed, said Stanekzai and Obaidullah Barekzai, a member of parliament from Uruzgan province who had seen the bodies of both men being brought out.

Hours after the attack began, gunfire could still be heard in western Karte Seh district, home to the country's parliament, many Afghan politicians and media and some embassies.

There was a heavy presence of security troops in the area and the streets leading to Khan's home were cordoned off.

The attack came on the day that Afghanistan began a long-promised transition to control of its own security, but the process kicked off in the relatively peaceful central province of Bamiyan, half a day's drive from Kabul.

A surge of U.S. troops has helped improve security in the south of the country over the last year, but there has been spreading insecurity in once peaceful northern areas, fiercer fighting in the east and record civilian casualties.

The first half of this year was the deadliest six months for civilians in the last decade of conflict, with nearly 1,500 killed, the United Nations said in a recent report.

(Writing by Emma Graham-Harrison, editing by Myra MacDonald)

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U.S. official meets Yemen president Saleh in Riyadh (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama's top counter-terrorism official, John Brennan, urged Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh on Sunday to sign a transition plan that will lead to Saleh's departure.

Brennan met Saleh in the Saudi capital Riyadh, where Saleh had flown for medical treatment after the June 3 attack on his presidential compound.

Veteran leaders in Egypt and Tunisia bowed to popular pressure to resign, but Saleh has refused to do so and has hung on to power despite international pressure and six months of protests against his 33-year rule.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said in a statement that Brennan wished Saleh a speedy recovery and reiterated U.S. condemnation of the attack against him.

He called on Saleh to fulfill quickly his pledge to sign a Gulf-brokered deal for a peaceful handover of power in Yemen.

"Mr. Brennan emphasized the importance of resolving the political crisis in Sanaa so that the Yemeni government and people can successfully confront the serious challenges they face, including the terrorist attacks carried out by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which have claimed the lives of hundreds of Yemeni citizens," Carney said.

He said Brennan told him the United States is working closely with Yemen's allies in the Gulf Cooperation Council, Europe, and elsewhere to ensure that much needed assistance will flow to Yemen as soon as the GCC proposal is signed and implemented.

"The United States believes that a transition in Yemen should begin immediately so that the Yemeni people can realize their aspirations," said Carney.

(Reporting by Steve Holland, Editing by Sandra Maler)

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