U.S. team: N. Korea ready to talk
SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) -- A U.S. Congressional team sent to the Korean peninsula says Pyongyang is ready to rejoin six-party talks on its secretive nuclear program.
Leader of the delegation, Republican Rep. Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania, said on Friday the talks could "resume in a matter of weeks as opposed to months or years."
Weldon and the delegation met with South Korean officials Friday and gave them an assessment of the team's four-day visit to Pyongyang, the capital of reclusive North Korea.
North Korea backed out of a fourth round of six-party talks on its nuclear program in September.
North Korea's resumption of its nuclear weapons program has set its neighbors and much of the rest of the world on edge and prompted five nations -- the United States, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea -- to pile the pressure on the isolationist nation to curb its ambitions.
Weldon, who serves as vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, last visited North Korea some 18 months ago. He said this trip was a "success" and "our meetings were outstanding and positive."
"I am convinced as are my colleagues that if, in fact, we move along the process that we're moving today, the six-party talks can and will resume in a matter of weeks, as opposed to months or years," he said.
Weldon also was positive about his meetings with North Korea's parliament president Kim Yong-Nam, who is second only to the country's leader Kim Jong-Il.
He said vice foreign minister Kim Kyae-gwan -- the North's representative to the six-party talks -- "expressed optimism that as long as the U.S. did not appear or act in a belligerent manner they would in fact be prepared to move through serious negotiations to achieve the ultimate objective which is the total and complete elimination of the nuclear capability of DPRK (Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea)."
After his meeting with the press, Weldon and his team met with South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon, and other officials.
CNN Correspondent Sohn Jie-Ae contributed to this report
