LEAD) U.S. won't hold one-on-one dialogue with N.K. outside 6-way talks: State Dept.

(ATTN: MODIFIES throughout; TRIMS; ADDS Sen. Kerry's remarks at bottom)
By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, Sept. 14 (Yonhap) -- The United States said Monday it will consider
holding one-on-one talks with North Korea but that any meeting would be within
the framework of six-nation negotiations.

The remark by State Department spokesman Ian Kelly came as a response to North
Korea's invitation to a U.S. envoy. It also echoed comments by other Washington
officials, and reaffirmed the White House's commitment to international
cooperation in disarming the communist state.
"We will not have any substantive bilateral talks with North Korea that's outside
of the six-party context ... our goal is to get North Korea to return to the
six-party context," Kelly said in a daily news briefing. Washington's partners in
the talks are South Korea, Japan, Russia and China.
Stephen Bosworth, U.S. special representative for North Korea policy, was given
an invitation to Pyongyang through Bill Clinton during the former president's
August trip to the North Korean capital to secure the release of two American
Journalists.
Bosworth's most recent Asia tour was aimed at consulting with officials in
Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo on how to respond to the North's offer. Wrapping up the
trip, he said: "The United States is willing to engage with North Korea on a
bilateral basis, and we are currently considering how best to respond to a North
Korean invitation for bilateral talks."
Kelly stressed that Washington has not made up its mind. "No decision has been
made as to whether or not we will accept this invitation for (Bosworth) to go to
visit Pyongyang," he said.
Washington earlier proposed to have Bosworth visit the North in March, but the
offer was rejected as tensions rose over Pyongyang's planned launch of a rocket
-- seen by the outside world as a test of ballistic missile technology.
A senior Obama administration official, asking anonymity, said on Sunday that
Bosworth "collected views from the other four (dialogue partners) about a
U.S.-North Korea meeting -- timing, level, venue, content. He's developing next
steps based on input, not yet made a decision."
It remains unclear what North Korea hopes to gain through direct talks with
Washington. Last week Pyongyang announced it is close to being able to enrich
uranium, a second path to making nuclear weapons aside from plutonium.
The six-nation negotiations, which began in 2003, have been deadlocked since late
last year over how to verify North Korea's denuclearization efforts. North Korea
withdrew from the talks in April, and has said it restarted its main reactor and
is weaponizing processed plutonium.
The six-party agreement, signed in September 2005, calls for North Korea's
nuclear dismantlement in return for massive energy and economic aid,
normalization of ties with Washington and Tokyo and the establishment of a
permanent peace regime to replace the fragile armistice that ended the 1950-53
Korean War.
Analysts have said that Bosworth could either visit Pyongyang or fly to a third
country for talks with North Koreans on another Asia trip next month.
As Washington weighs its options, some warn that further isolating the North
would only lead it to amass a greater nuclear arsenal. Former U.S. President
George W. Bush often came under fire for designating Pyongyang as part of an axis
of evil and ignoring it, then having to scramble for dialogue after the North
conducted its first nuclear test.
Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) urged the Obama administration to engage the North more
actively.
"We must resist the temptation to go into a defensive crouch," said Kerry,
chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, at a forum here organized by
a group of Korean-Americans supporting engagement with the North.
"The past teaches us that benign neglect of the North Korea challenge is not a
viable option. The U.S. must lead efforts to stop the current negative cycle of
action and reaction and begin the hard diplomatic work needed to deliver
results."
hdh@yna.co.kr
(END)