The defections of two North Korean diplomats to the United States was the latest thorn in the prickly relationship between the two nations and could threaten the peace talks due to start next month, political analysts said Thursday.

Pyongyang responded quickly this week to the news that its ambassador to Egypt, Chang Sung Gil, and his brther, the former trade attache to France, Chang Sung Ho – and their families – had fled to the United States.

On Wednesday, a day after Washington announced it would place the two brothers under “parole” status, as a preliminary step to the possible granting of political asylum, North Korean officials abruptly cancelled talks in New York to discuss missile proliferation.

Pyongyang also labelled the two defectors as “criminals” guilty of leaking state secrets, and warned other countries not to offer them protection or asylum.

“North Korea cited the U.S. decision to allow North Korean Ambassador to Egypt Chang and his family to come to the United States as their reason for not participating,” Barry Toiv, the deputy White House press secretary, said Wednesday.

“While the decision of the North was not unexpected, it is nonetheless disappointing,” Toiv added. “We see no linkage between the defection and missile talks and we believe it is in North Korea’s interest to remain engaged in the talks.”

One diplomat involved in the cancelled missile talks, who did not wish to be identified, said that the North Korean move was only a slight setback. More worrying, was a possible North Korean cancellation of working-level talks scheduled here for Sep. 15 to pave the way for peace talks involving both North and South Korea, as well as China and the United States.

Those talks could be doomed, added Selig Harrison, a senior scholar at Washington’s Woodrow Wilson Centre.

“It was completely predictable that the U.S. decision to admit the two North Korean defectors would lead to a rupture in U.S.- North Korean relations,” Harrison said.

“This development undermines the more moderate elements (in North Korea) that were involved in the missile talks and the four- party peace talks…the hard-liners have gained in North Korea, and they will continue to have the dominant position.”

Harrison said that Kim Jong-il’s government has been divided for years. Moderates had sought better relations, including normalised trade, with the United States while hard-line Communists wanted nothing to do with Washington.

Allowing Chang Sung Gil – the highest-level North Korean official ever to defect – to enter the United States, merely confirmed the hard-liners’ worst fears, Harrison contended: “It would make it appear to North Korea that the United States wants to see the collapse of North Korea.”

U.S. officials, anxious to keep the slow-paced peace talks on track, downplayed the possiblke consequences of Chang’s defection.

“We have again no reason to believe at this time…that (the North Koreans) will not show up at these negotiations to pave the way for four-party peace talks,” State Department spokesman James Rubin said Wednesday. “We’re hopeful (the talks) will proceed on track.”

Rubin stressed the point that the Chang brothers had not yet been granted asylum by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalisation Service, referring to their status only as a “parole” granted by the State Department.

But regardless of how the Changs’ status is described, North Korea is doubtlessly concerned that the defectors could provide crucial information to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), political analysts said. Pyongyang already has suffered from the defection to South Korea last year of its key political philosopher, Hwang Jang Yop.

Gleeful CIA officials told reporters that Chang Sung Gil’s defection offered them a rare opportunity to extract information from a top North Korean without the intervention of South Korean intelligence. Chang, Pyongyang’s top Middle East envoy, is believed to possess detailed data about the sale of North Korean Scud missile technology to Egypt, Syria and Iran, CIA agents said.

Despite the importance of the defections, Rubin insisted that Washington did not believe that Kim Jong-il’s government – buffeted by widespread famine after a series of natural disasters – is collapsing. Some officials even attributed the defections of the Chang brothers to personal disputes, and noted that Chang Sung Gil’s son defected earlier, possibly endangering his father’s career.

The defections nevertheless come at a fragile time for the four- party talks, the latest attempt to replace the armistice which ended the 1950-53 war inKorea with a lasting peace. North Korean diplomats last month cancelled discussions on the agenda for the four-nation talks until Sept. 15, arguing that any peace negotiations should include plans to pull U.S. troops out of South Korea.

Now, Harrison argued, “prospects for U.S.-North Korean relations of any kind is very dim unless the United States can provide ammunition to (North Korean) moderates by providing large- scale shipments of food aid.”

The United Nations estimates that two years of flooding and this summer’s drought have cost North Korea some 70 percent of its corn output, among other staple crops, and U.N. officials have warned of large-scale starvation and malnutrition if the country does not receive large amounts of food aid.

The United States has donated 60 million dollars of food aid to the North since 1995, but has warned that such assistance needs to be monitored to ensure that the neediest Koreans receive their fair share. For now, U.S. officials have not indicated that they feel the need to take any new steps to placate Pyongyang.

“We remain committed to the four-party process,” Toiv said.

“We believe it’s in the interest of all parties, and we believe that North Korea continues to see the value of the talks as well.”