Diplomacy

Talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons program resumed here Thursday, with China distributing a draft agreement that U.S. and South Korean envoys described today as offering a good start for discussions. South Korean negotiator Chun Yung-woo and U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill declined to give any details of the draft.

The Bush administration's self-proclaimed "year of engagement" with Latin America kicked off last week with broadsides against Venezuela and Iran, a diplomatic tiff with Argentina and analysts wondering whether it all wasn't a little late in the game. "A veritable diplomatic offensive by a government that has only concentrated on Iraq," wrote veteran correspondent Gustavo Sierra in the Argentine newspaper Clarin after a visit here by R. Nicholas Burns, U.S.

Anyone seeking signs that China and Japan are working hard to get their fraught relations back on track should consider this: After a four-year ban, the Chinese have agreed to resume eating Japanese rice. China cut off rice imports from Japan in 2003, ostensibly because Beijing had found insects in a shipment.

Questions over how to deal with the proposed Palestinian unity government overshadowed preparations Sunday for a meeting between Israeli and Palestinian leaders today that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice hopes can restart peace talks. As Rice met separately with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas before the three-way session, the topic was not grand gestures of conciliation but whether Israel and the U.S.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday that the United States would join high-level talks on Iraq with the country's neighbors, including Iran and Syria, in a move that may signal a new U.S. willingness to expand diplomacy with two adversaries. U.S.

On his first official visit to Saudi Arabia, Iran's president held crucial talks with King Abdullah that are being discussed as a possible means to defuse sectarian tensions in the region and prevent Iran from sliding further into isolation. The two countries have had chilly relations since the 2005 election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose nuclear program has made Iran's Arab neighbors increasingly wary.

Like a frustrated in-law trying to reconcile a feuding couple, Iraq is hoping for a thaw in U.S.-Iran relations when representatives of the countries meet in Baghdad today. Just getting the two to sit at the same table is a breakthrough, considering how unlikely the possibility seemed weeks ago. But analysts warn against unreasonable expectations.

Over lamb chops and cuts of beef, President Bush chatted amiably Saturday at this presidential retreat with a former leader of a legendary band of leftist guerrillas known as the Tupamaros. "I respect you and I'm proud to be in your country," Bush told Jose "Pepe" Mujica, who is now Uruguay's minister of agriculture and livestock, according to a White House aide. Mujica, the aide said, was pleased to give Bush an expansive overview of this tiny nation's agricultural needs.

President Bush wrapped up his Latin American tour Wednesday with a pledge to Mexican President Felipe Calderon that he would seek an accord that straddles the middle ground between amnesty to illegal residents and booting out more than 12 million people. "Amnesty is not going to fly," Bush said. "There is not going to be automatic citizenship; it just won't work. People in the United States don't support that, and neither do I. Nor will kicking people out of the United States work.

The United States made its first contact with the new Hamas-Fatah coalition, ending a yearlong diplomatic boycott of the Palestinian government. Jacob Walles, the U.S. consul general in Jerusalem, went to the West Bank city of Ramallah, where he met with Finance Minister Salam Fayyad, a political independent. Fayyad is leading Palestinian efforts to end international sanctions imposed a year ago when the Islamic militants of Hamas won legislative elections.