With the world gripped by fear of a nuclear-armed North Korea , a U.S. envoy arrived in Seoul Sunday to try to defuse the crisis amid warnings from Russia too much pressure on the communist state could backfire. North Korea again denied it had ever admitted to having a covert nuclear weapons program and warned the United States its people would disappear in "a sea of fire."

In the latest diplomatic response to North Korea's decision to pull out of a global treaty preventing the spread of nuclear arms, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly was making his first visit to the region since October, when he said Pyongyang admitted to a nuclear arms program.

Kelly is due to meet officials at the presidential Blue House Monday and to hold talks with president-elect Roh Moo-hyun.
"We are going to talk positively," he said on his arrival.
Diplomatic activity was under way elsewhere in the region.

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, fresh from talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin , met in eastern Russia with Konstantin Pulikovsky, a Russian point man on North Korea who is believed to have close ties to its reclusive leader, Kim Jong-il.

"It is important that North Korea be steadfastly worked upon to gain a peaceful solution," Koizumi told Pulikovsky, Putin's prefect for the far east.

North Korea, suspected by the United States of making nuclear bombs and of possibly having two in its arsenal, on Saturday became the first country to pull out of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), triggering alarm in neighboring countries and worldwide condemnation.

Within hours, it said it was free to resume missile-firing tests, ratcheting up tension with the United States in a bid to force Washington into negotiations.

Analysts say Pyongyang and its secretive leader have been anxious for the survival of their administration ever since President Bush  last year bracketed North Korea with Iraq and Iran in an "axis of evil."

TO PRESSURE OR NOT TO PRESSURE

South Korean officials, their capital within striking range of 11,000 North Korean artillery barrels, said Pyongyang was trying to hasten a resolution of the nuclear standoff.

Japan's Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary, Shinzo Abe, told Fuji Television from Khabarovsk that Pyongyang was "playing a dangerous game," but the issue could be resolved through talks.

"If the world applies pressure and convinces North Korea that it will not gain anything with this game...I think it is possible for the situation to return to the way it was," he said.

However, Russia's Pulikovsky said his knowledge of Kim Jong-il suggested a soft approach was likely to be more effective.

"He will not permit being pressured from outside," Pulikovsky was quoted as saying. "He will only be repelled by this."
Signaling its anger in a renewed outpouring of rage against the United States, Pyongyang urged all Koreans to unite to rid the peninsula of the U.S. presence, part of a drive to build on differences between South Korea  and the United States sparked by mounting anti-American sentiment.

"The U.S. intentionally fabricated our admission to a nuclear development program," South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted the North's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) as saying.

The United States said in October that North Korea had admitted during Kelly's last visit to having a covert program to enrich uranium for nuclear arms in violation of a 1994 agreement.

Pyongyang has said repeatedly its remarks to Kelly were distorted.

The same month, North Korea said it would address U.S. concerns about its nuclear program if the United States signed a non-aggression treaty, guaranteed Pyongyang's sovereignty and pledged not to interfere in its economic development.

Blaming Washington for forcing the decision to abandon the NPT, KCNA said a "reckless challenge" by the United States would "turn the stronghold of the enemy into a sea of fire."

An official with South Korea's Unification Ministry said North Korea "apparently thinks the U.S. is trying to buy time."
"With the statement (to pull out of the NPT), Pyongyang is saying it can't wait for Washington to come back to the table after the Iraqi dispute is settled," he said.

In an unusual diplomatic encounter on the sidelines of the U.S. administration, North Korea made no concessions.

After a senior North Korean official wrapped up three days of talks in New Mexico with Democrat and former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations  Bill Richardson, Washington said Pyongyang had failed to address issues of concern.

"The North Koreans told me that they don't plan to build nuclear weapons and I took that as a positive statement," Richardson told reporters after concluding almost nine hours of talks with Han Song Ryol, a high-ranking member of the North Korean delegation to the United Nations.

THE WRONG DIRECTION

But the Bush administration said the talks in Santa Fe had not addressed issues of concern and warned Pyongyang was taking steps in the wrong direction.

Richardson, who has successfully negotiated with the North Koreans in the past, said the onus was now on Pyongyang and Washington to open an official dialogue.

"Ambassador Han has expressed to me North Korea's willingness to have better relations with the United States. He told me the government of North Korea wants to resolve the nuclear issue through dialogue," Richardson said.

That marked little change from Pyongyang's long-stated position. And the Bush administration -- which has said it is willing to talk but not to negotiate with Pyongyang -- reiterated its offer of dialogue.

The secretive state has caused alarm across the world since it disabled U.N. nuclear monitoring equipment and expelled U.N. nuclear inspectors last month.

A North Korean diplomat said Saturday in Vienna that a Soviet-built nuclear research reactor in Yongbyon, believed to be at the center of the country's covert nuclear weapons program, would become operable in a few weeks.

The two Koreas have been technically at war for the past half-century because the 1950-53 Korean war ended with a cease-fire, not a permanent treaty.

PHOTO CAPTION

Assistant U.S. Secretary of State James Kelly (L) is greeted upon his arrival at Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul, Jan. 12, 2003. Kelly arrived in Seoul on Sunday for talks on communist North Korea's nuclear crisis. (Stringer/Korea/Reuter