With leader Kim Jong-Il in uncertain health, many analysts believe his ultimate goal is winning US recognition of impoverished Pyongyang as a nuclear power -- an idea adamantly rejected by US policymakers across the spectrum.

The reclusive communist state in recent weeks has freed two US reporters, reopened its borders to South Koreans and sent envoys for casual chats with New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, a longtime intercessor with Pyongyang.

The moves mark a sharp change in tone from the early days of President Barack Obama's administration, when Pyongyang tested a nuclear bomb, fired a missile over Japan and declared dead a six-nation disarmament accord.

"It's a welcome respite from what had been a very sharp escalatory trajectory by North Korea that could have quickly led to a very real crisis," said Gordon Flake, executive director of the Mansfield Foundation think-tank.

"But as for whether it presages any real potential for negotiations, I'm much more skeptical," said Flake, who advised Obama on Korea policy during his presidential campaign.

Richardson said that North Korea wanted one-on-one talks with the United States after its gestures, including its release of two detained journalists to former president Bill Clinton who paid a rare visit to Pyongyang.

"To have Bill Richardson walk out and say, 'the North Koreans are now ready for dialogue,' is ridiculous," Flake said. "They've always been ready to talk -- premised on us recognizing them as a nuclear power."

The State Department said Thursday it was willing to talk to North Korea bilaterally but only within the framework of the six-way talks, which also involve China, Japan, South Korea and Russia.

Besides bringing in key regional players, the six-party talks enshrine a commitment made by North Korea in 2007 to give up its nuclear weapons in return for badly needed aid and security guarantees.

"I really don't think that the bilateral-multilateral thing is the issue and I don't know why Governor Richardson framed it that way," said Victor Cha, who was former president George W. Bush's top adviser on North Korea.

Cha, now Korea chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a professor at Georgetown University, said the real obstacle was how to engage North Korea in negotiations whose ultimate goal is denuclearization.

He said negotiations could still achieve more modest goals, such as pressuring North Korea at least to freeze its weapons program.

"But deep down inside you know that this regime is not interested in giving them up and you don't want to do anything that gives them the sense that we're accepting them as a nuclear weapons state," Cha said.

"So it's a very tough balance to try to manage," he said.

Cha said recent North Korean actions showed that sanctions were working, with opening the border to South Koreans a sign that Pyongyang needed cash.

Peter Beck, a Korea expert at American University, said North Korea likely realized its provocations had gone too far, alienating even key backers China and Russia.

"The regime is clearly signaling that they want to at least appear to be more reasonable," Beck said.

The Obama administration, despite reaching out to other US arch-enemies such as Iran and Cuba, has made few conciliatory gestures to North Korea.

Days after Clinton's trip, the Obama administration dispatched an envoy, Philip Goldberg, to Asia on a mission to tighten the UN sanctions on North Korea.

Beck predicted a continued firm line from the Obama administration, which he said was "extremely upset" that North Korea carried out its nuclear test before the new US team was even in place.

"I think the prospects for a fundamental breakthrough are still very low. But on the other hand a full-on crisis doesn't serve the interest of either Washington or Pyongyang," Beck said.

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