Reuters: N.Korea seen taking tougher stance at nuclear talks

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N.Korea seen taking tougher stance at nuclear talks

By Paul Eckert, Asia Correspondent
Reuters
Wednesday, November 15, 2006; 5:00 PM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - North Korea is returning to stalled nuclear talks
to end a U.S. crackdown on its finances but will take a harder line in
talks because it has exploded its first nuclear bomb, a group of experts
said on Wednesday after visiting Pyongyang.

Now that North Korea has tested a nuclear bomb, it wants to be treated
as being on an "equal footing" with the United States as a nuclear power,
said the atomic expert and former U.S. officials who visited North Korea
from October 31 to November 4.

The group visited just after Pyongyang announced its intention to end a
year-long boycott of six-party nuclear talks and weeks after the North's
October 9 nuclear test.

North Korean nuclear negotiators, military officials and atomic experts
uniformly gave the impression that "we're going to be a tougher
negotiating partner now that we have demonstrated our nuclear
capacity," said Siegfried Hecker, a nuclear scientist at Stanford
University.

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Full article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/15/AR2006111501052.html