A change in US rhetoric, including President George W. Bush's polite reference to North Korean leader as "Mister Kim Jong Il" and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's recognition of Pyongyang as a sovereign government, helped woo the hardline communist regime back to six-party talks in Beijing starting Tuesday.

More incentives may be in store.

The Bush administration hints it may abandon its long held strategy of seeking regime change in North Korea as a way of ending its nearly three-year nuclear standoff with the hardline communist state, once termed as part of an "axis of evil" and "outpost of tyranny."

"The point for the United States is: he (Kim) is the ruler of the country and we have to deal with the person who is the ruler of the country," said a senior US administration official, who accompanied Rice on a recent trip for consultations with leaders in China, South Korea and Japan.

Bush, who previously termed Kim as a "dangerous person" and a "tyrant", deliberately began addressing the dictator as "Mister Kim Jong Il" in recent months to reinforce Washington's stand that North Korea is sovereign.

"It's part of the recognition that they were a sovereign nation," the US official conceded. "To Americans, it seems like an almost absurd kind of thing but it matters to them (North Koreans)," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The United States, which has 32,500 troops stationed in South Korea, has also pledged not to invade North Korea.

"There are more security assurances one can talk in a six-party framework but the fundamental security assurance the North Koreans had emphasized is there," the official said.

Renewed hopes that North Korea would abandon its atomic ambitions stemmed from a statement by Kim to a senior South Korean minister in June that nuclear weapons did not need to be part of North Korea's future.

"The South Koreans then moved to take him at his word as we all did," the US official said.

Kim's statement triggered a resumption of American and later South Korean food aid shipments to North Korea, which is facing great difficulties feeding its people.

The new atmosphere of goodwill led to a turnaround by Pyongyang two weeks ago and return to six-party talks with the United States, South Korea, Russia, Japan and host China aimed at ending its nuclear programs in return for aid.

"The change in US rhetoric was an extremely important factor in bringing North Korea back to the negotiating table," said Donald Gregg, chairman of The Korea Society based in New York.

In addition, he said, the Bush administration appears to have recognized that South Korea's strengthening economic ties with its northern neighbour should not be seen as "rewarding bad behavior" but as a powerful inducement to get Pyongyang to end its nuclear weapons drive.

Testimony to this was Rice's endorsement of an ambitious South Korean plan to supply electricity to its northern neighbour for eventual inclusion in a Washington-led aid-for-disarmament proposal to Pyongyang.

"So you have security assurances, you have energy assistance, you have normalization beginning with a threshold statement that we recognise them as sovereign," the US official said.

North Korea broke off discussions in June 2004 after three inconclusive rounds, rejecting the proposal which required an up-front pledge to dismantle all nuclear programs before getting aid and security guarantees.

Under the plan, Pyongyang would have three months to disclose its plutonium and uranium programs and have its claims verified by US intelligence.

The North Koreans want greater flexibility.

According to another senior US administration official, Washington wants to hear from the North Koreans how the "sequencing of reciprocal steps" could be rearranged to suit their interests.

North Korea's other concerns could also be considered if it makes the "strategic choice" to abandon its nuclear programs, he said.

"A strategic choice about nuclear weapons is absolutely critical but a strategic choice about nuclear weapons would clearly just be part of a larger strategic choice that they are making of the future of their country," the official said.

"All of North Korea's concerns can be discussed within the six-party framework and we have done things to show them that," he said.

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