U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said the United States is not seeking to restore the 1994 Agreed Framework with North Korea and would require “a new arrangement” if a future agreement with Pyongyang can be reached, the Wall Street Journal reported today (see GSN, Jan. 13).

The 1994 framework “did succeed in capping production,” Powell said.  “But (it) left intact the capacity for production.  I think, therefore, that we need a new arrangement and not just go back to the existing framework,” he said.

Powell said it is not certain that the United States would agree to resume its commitment to build two light-water nuclear reactors in North Korea if Pyongyang abandons its nuclear aspirations.

“It might be reactors, it might be some other form of energy,” Powell said.

Powell hinted that the Bush administration would not sign a nonaggression treaty, but he said “there are other ways to document” the White House’s repeated assurances it will not attack North Korea.

Pyongyang, meanwhile, said that it might allow inspections to resume if the United States and the International Atomic Energy Agency change their policy toward North Korea.

“If the United States drops its hostile policy,” Pyongyang could allow a “check to prove that we aren’t building nuclear weapons,” said Pak Ui Chun, the North Korean ambassador in Moscow (Robbins/Cloud, Wall Street Journal, Jan. 14).

North Korea also pushed for direct talks with the United States on the issue.

The nuclear standoff is “a bilateral issue that can only be peacefully resolved through negotiations between the principal parties,” said a statement from the official North Korean news agency (CNN.com, Jan. 14).

A comment from U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly yesterday, which was viewed as a conciliatory gesture from the United States, has drawn criticism from the White House.  A reporter asked if an Exxon Mobil gas pipeline project would help North Korea solve its energy problems and Kelly said that after the nuclear weapons issue is solved, there “may be opportunities with the U.S., with private investors, with other countries, to help North Korea in the energy area.”

Bush administration hardliners were upset with the comments, the Washington Post reported.

“Kelly went off the reservation with that answer,” said one administration official.  The White House has implied that North Korea would benefit from dropping its nuclear aspirations, but no specifics have been mentioned, the official said.

“He should not have planted that seed,” the official added.

Another official in the White House said there was nothing wrong with Kelly’s remarks.  Hard-line administration officials “increasingly don’t give a damn,” about Pyongyang’s actions, the official said.

“They know (Korean leader Kim Jong Il) is evil.  They want him dead,” the official added (Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, Jan. 14).

Officially, the White House said the United States would only consider helping solve North Korea’s energy crisis if Pyongyang made “verifiable” and “irreversible” moves to prove it was not developing nuclear weapons.

“I think that it’s clear that North Korea first knows what it needs to do,” said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.  “And we’ve always said that if North Korea comes into its international obligations, then they will stop isolating themselves,” he added (CNN.com, Jan. 14).

U.N. Envoy to North Korea

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan sent special envoy Maurice Strong to North Korea to evaluate humanitarian conditions, Reuters reported yesterday.

“The pipeline is drying up and unless new humanitarian supplies start to move quickly, there could be a significant crisis in March or April,” Strong told reporters in Beijing before heading to Pyongyang.

The United States suspended its food aid over concerns about the distribution system (see GSN, Jan. 6; Juliana Liu, Reuters/MSNBC.com, Jan. 13).

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