"I think the talks would resume," Charles Pritchard, a former U.S. negotiator with Pyongyang, said. "Whether or not they will be successful is an entirely different issue."

The Korean leader is scheduled to meet his Chinese counterpart and exchange views on the six-party talks and push for a peaceful resolution of the issue, a Chinese spokesman said. Beijing hosts the six-party talks.

Apart from China and the two Koreas, the other participants are the United States, Japan and Russia. It has been a year since the last round of the six-party talks were held in an effort to induce Pyongyang to end its nuclear weapons program.

A U.S. State Department official said the six-party talks were the best way to resolve the nuclear issue, adding it was for the North Koreans to decide and return to the negotiating table "without any preconditions."

Last week North Korean leader Kim Jong Il told the South Korean unification minister that talks could begin as early as July if his country was treated with "respect."

The meeting marked the first time in three years the reclusive North Korean leader met with a South Korean official. South Korea's vice-foreign minister is visiting Washington this week to discuss this meeting.

According to Robert Hathaway director, Asia Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the South Korean prime minister's visit to China was an indication China and South Korea were trying to lay the groundwork for the talks.

Pritchard said China and South Korea had a vested interest in the issue getting resolved because the situation in North Korea affected the peace and stability along their border.

"It's comforting to see the two (China and Korea) discussing the issue but talking amongst themselves is not going to help," Hathaway said. "It's Pyongyang that ultimately has to decide to come to the table."

He said the biggest incentive for North Korea for resuming talks was the regime's survival. The "extraordinary deprivation" of the citizens was threatening the survival of the regime in the long term, Hathaway said. "The regime cannot last until it meets the needs of its people by engaging with the world."

Pritchard said the North Koreans had embarked on an unsteady economic reform program adding the health and longevity of the regime depended on sustaining those reforms and this necessitated an engagement with the international community.

This, he said, was another factor that may induce Pyongyang to negotiate on its nuclear program.

The threat to the North Korean regime is not from its possession of nuclear weapons but from the widespread hunger and poverty, Hathaway said.

Jon Wolfsthal, deputy director for Non-Proliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said North Korea would not benefit from retaining the nuclear weapons.

"If nuclear weapons are seen as a means to an end in North Korea then they can be traded or exchanged for other more effective means to that same end," he said.

In the last round of negotiations, in June 2004, Washington offered Pyongyang multilateral security assurances, as well as economic, energy and diplomatic benefits that would be given in phases as North Korea dismantled all parts of its nuclear weapons arsenal.

"This is not the end game but the starting point for further talks," Pritchard said.

However, Wolfsthal said the United States needed to be specific and generous in laying out the benefits North Korea would receive for a complete elimination of the nuclear program.

"Currently we are forcing North Korea to eat vinegar as opposed to swallow sugar," he said.

The United States should make North Korea offers that they could not refuse without exposing themselves as having no interest in a negotiated settlement, he added.

Wolfsthal said by making it difficult for North Korea to turn down a generous offer it would send a clear signal to South Korea and China the United States had gone the extra mile to come to a negotiate settlement.

"Currently there is supreme lack of trust between the U.S. and North Korea and the other countries," he said.

Hathaway said though he would like to see United States display more "flexibility, creativity and sensitivity" while dealing with North Korea it should not be forgotten it was North Korea that was to blame for the situation. "It fundamentally cheated about its nonproliferation commitment."

Earlier the United States had resisted and opposed any direct benefit or awards to North Korea for doing something the United States thought they ought to have done in the first place - abide by nonproliferation commitments.

Wolfsthal and Hathaway said it wasn't enough merely to resume the talks. It should be made clear to the North Koreans that they would face consequences if the talks break down.

"There needs to be a firm commitment and political will to get together," Wolfsthal said.

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