North Korean leader Kim Jong-il said in talks with a Chinese presidential envoy on Friday that he is willing to resolve an ongoing nuclear standoff with the international community through "bilateral or multilateral dialogue," China's news agency said.

NEW YORK - Suddenly, North Korea's peace offensive has exploded in a mushroom cloud with word from Pyongyang that the North's nuclear wizards are about to enter "the completion stage" of their program to develop nuclear warheads with highly enriched uranium.

WASHINGTON - The seizure by the United Arab Emirates of a ship carrying North Korean rocket-propelled grenades and other conventional weapons, reportedly for delivery to Iran, belies the seriousness of North Korea's moves toward reconciliation in recent weeks.

WASHINGTON - Kim Dae-jung's funeral seems to have advanced his "Sunshine" policy of reconciliation with North Korea more effectively than he did in the last few years of his life.

WASHINGTON - The return home of Hyundai Asan technician Yoo Seong-jin after 137 days in captivity in North Korea, like that of the two American journalists whom former United States president Bill Clinton flew to Pyongyang to bring home to America, raises enormous questions.

North Korea pardoned and released two detained American journalists after former president Bill Clinton met in Pyongyang on Tuesday with the country's ailing dictator, a transaction that gives Kim Jong Il a thin slice of the international legitimacy that has long eluded him.