The communist country has created crises on the Korean peninsula whenever it wants to grab attention from new leaders and gain the upper hand in future negotiations, experts here say.

Once talks have started, the North slows the negotiations by slicing up the agenda and setting conditions for moving from one item to another in what analysts call "salami tactics," aimed at maximizing its gains at each stage. If the negotiating partner balks, it uses brinkmanship.

Its recent series of saber-rattling tactics was highlighted by preparations for the launch of a long-range ballistic missile designed to carry a nuclear warhead that can hit U.S. territory.

According to South Korean officials, on Friday a train carrying what is believed to be components of a Taepodong-2 missile capable of traveling up to 6,000 kilometers reached a launching site on the northeast coast, where the North test-fired a similar rocket in 2006 over Japan into the Pacific Ocean.

Some experts say the missile could be a remodeled version of the Taepodong-2 with a range of up to 10,000 kilometers, calling it Taepodong-3.

South Korean officials initially said the train was detected heading to Dongchang-ri, a newly constructed launch pad on the North's west coast, about 40 kilometers from the border with China.

NKorea wants direct nuclear talks with US: experts North Korea wants to push forward with six-party negotiations aimed at denuclearisation as well as holding direct talks with the United States, a group of American experts said here Saturday. But the unofficial delegation of US experts, who travelled to North Korea this week for talks with unnamed diplomatic and military officials, said Pyongyang appeared in no hurry to resume the stalled negotiations. "I don't think they see any urgency to circumstances," Jonathan Pollack, a professor of Asian and Pacific studies at the Naval War College in the United States, told reporters at Beijing airport. "They don't seem edgy about things, they will wait and see," he said after the five-day visit, which came amid reports that Pyongyang is preparing to test fire a long-range missile. Pollack said it was "fair to say that the DPRK (North Korea) must prefer the bilateral channel with the US" to six-party negotiations. But Stephen Bosworth, former US ambassador in South Korea, said both the resumption of six-party talks and direct talks with the United States were likely. "I don't think the Obama administration wants to avoid direct contact with the North Koreans as was the case a few years ago," he said. "But we all learned that six party process can be very useful. I think there will be both." North Korea's nuclear programme is expected to be high on the agenda of new US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when she travels to Asia on February 15 for a tour that will include visits to Japan, South Korea and China.

But they said the train has arrived at the Musudan-ri launch site on the east coast. "The train was last seen stationed at the Musudan-ri site," a government official said.

Officials and analysts say a missile test could take place when the North holds parliamentary elections on March 8, which would be used to open leader Kim Jong Il's third term and possibly pave the way for another dynastic power transfer. This also could occur as early as Kim's birthday on Feb. 16.

The missile-launch preparations came after the North declared last week it would not abide by the non-aggression pact and other agreements it has made with South Korea, which put the South on high alert.

The communist country also said it no longer would respect the U.N.-imposed sea border with the South, raising the possibility of a naval skirmish in the disputed waters where the two Koreas exchanged deadly naval gunfire in 1999 and 2002.

Pyongyang launched similar tension-raising measures 16 years ago when the Democratic administration of U.S. President Bill Clinton was inaugurated, a strategy that helped win the 1994 aid-for-disarmament deal.

Just one month after Clinton took office, the North issued a statement, in March 1993, saying it would pull out of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. Two months later the North fired a Rodong-1 missile with a range of 1,000 kilometers.

In the following year, the North withdrew from the International Atomic Energy Agency and began extracting spent fuel rods from its Yongbyon nuclear reactor.

The brinkmanship finally paid off, leading to high-level talks with the Clinton administration that produced the Agreed Framework in October 1994 under which U.S.-led allies promised to provide light-water nuclear reactors for electricity and other aid packages in return for North Korea's promise to freeze its nuclear weapons program.

But the 1994 deal broke down in 2002, when the George W. Bush administration accused the North of reneging on the agreement by running a clandestine atomic program based on enriched uranium.

The North, which suffered from the hard-line stance of the Republican administration for the past eight years, is seeking to press U.S. President Barack Obama to follow in the footsteps of his Democratic predecessor, who promised massive economic and political benefits.

"North Korea's recent saber-rattling seems aimed at applying pressure on the Obama administration to reach a package deal, like the 1994 agreement," a diplomatic source said.

Kim Sung-han, a Korea University professor, said the North's moves are designed to attract attention from the Obama administration, which has focused its policy priorities on domestic economic issues and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

"The move follows a pattern that the North took just after the inauguration of the Clinton administration in 1993," said Yoon Duk-min, a researcher at the state-run Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security.

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