N. Korea to Halt Missile Tests During U.S. Talks

TOKYO — North Korea will halt test launches of long-range missiles during talks with U.S. negotiators, the government said Friday, suggesting that the reclusive Stalinist country wants to improve ties with Washington.

A North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman said the decision was made “to create a more favorable atmosphere” for the high-level talks, according to the country’s official Korean Central News Agency. The report was monitored in Japan and South Korea.

It was the first time since the United States agreed last week to ease sanctions against the North that the regime in Pyongyang, the capital, formally announced that it would halt the missile testing.

But North Korea also said the United States should lift all the economic sanctions that it has long maintained, not just the few it has promised to abolish.

In another development Friday, former U.S. Defense Secretary William J. Perry, Washington’s point man on North Korea, said in Tokyo that the U.S. hopes North Korea will one day comply with the Missile Technology Control Regime.

The international accord prohibits production, deployment, testing and export of missiles with ranges greater than 185 miles and payloads greater than 1,100 pounds, he said.

North Korea rattled nerves in East Asia and the West when it fired a Taepodong 1 long-range missile over Japan last year. Part of the missile, which is believed to have a range of up to 1,250 miles, landed in the Sea of Japan.