SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea today announced it would return to six-party nuclear talks and would consider treating the United States as a "friend," shortly after a visiting U.S. congressional delegation said the North appeared ready to negotiate.

Rep. Curt Weldon, vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, led a bipartisan delegation that held talks in Pyongyang with North Korea's No. 2 leader, Kim Yong Nam, Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun and Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan.

Weldon, R-Pa., said his team's "unanimous impression" was that the North was ready to rejoin the six-party process.

Hours after the American lawmakers left Pyongyang, the North Korean regime said it would not only return to nuclear talks but also treat the United States as a "friend" as long as Washington doesn't slander the rule of leader Kim Jong Il.

The United States, North and South Korea, China, Japan and Russia have struggled to arrange a new round of talks aimed at persuading the North to abandon its nuclear weapons programs.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Israel signaled today it will hold off on harsh retaliation for a bombing and shooting attack by Palestinian militants that killed six Israeli workers at a Gaza cargo crossing, giving newly elected Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas a chance to rein in violent groups.Thursday night's shooting at the Karni crossing, Gaza's main lifeline, marked the militants' first major challenge to Abbas, who has opposed violence.Three Palestinian gunmen were killed in the attack, and three armed groups claimed responsibility, including Hamas and the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, which has ties to Abbas' ruling Fatah movement.

LONDON - Prince Harry, who provoked outrage by wearing a swastika armband to a private party, is considering invitations from Jewish groups to visit the Auschwitz death camp, a royal official said today.A spokeswoman stressed that Harry would not attend ceremonies on Jan. 27 commemorating the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex, although the Simon Wiesenthal Foundation had urged him to do so.Harry swiftly apologized for "a poor choice of costume" after royal officials learned that The Sun newspaper was about to print a photograph of the prince in a Nazi uniform on its front page Thursday.The furor rumbled on today, with more caustic remarks about Harry's intelligence and sensitivity. But some commentators, pleading that the prince was just a 20-year-old trying to live a normal life, contended that the fuss was overblown."I want someone to stand up for him and say he is a very good man, and I'm that person," Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, told British Broadcasting Corp. radio. "Because I know what it is like to have a very bad press and to be continually criticized. It is very tiring and it is very unpleasant."Aaron Barschak, the self-styled "comedy terrorist" who dressed up as Osama bin Laden and gatecrashed Prince William's 21st birthday party, defended Harry."Your 20s are the time to do stupid things and get them out of your system," Barschak wrote in The Guardian, "Otherwise you keep everything inside of yourself and end up being arrested for gatecrashing a royal party dressed as the world's most wanted terrorist in your mid-30s."But that seemed to be the minority view."All these excuses boil down to one: that Prince Harry is a stupid young man, who meant no harm. That is what I would like very much to believe," Tom Utley wrote in The Daily Telegraph. "But if it is true, then we are not talking about an average level of stupidity. We are talking about stupidity on an absolutely monumental scale."By The Associated Press