Hopping off a Black Hawk helicopter just feet away from a barbed-wire fence that has divided a people into two countries for more than a half-century, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, met with front-line troops Wednesday along the demilitarized zone separating North and South Korea.

“When you’re up on the front lines, you can feel the tensions,” Collins said from Seoul late Wednesday night Korean time.

As she spoke, the United States has arranged to have China participate in trilateral talks with the North Korean government – starting next week in Beijing, Collins said – to try to diffuse a six-month escalation of tensions concerning the possibility that North Korea has been developing fuel for nuclear weapons.

Collins, who was one of four members of the Senate Armed Services Committee to accompany Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., on his first international tour, said the goal of the delegation was to show interest in a relaxation of tensions – and to reach out to troops who are putting their lives at risk on what had been the hottest front line involving U.S. troops until the Iraq crisis turned to war.

Collins was in Tokyo on Tuesday when she learned from the U.S. ambassador, former Sen. Howard H. Baker, R-Tenn., that the talks with North Korea and China had been arranged. Collins said Japanese officials, due to their proximity, indicated they would have liked to have been included, but they were still glad that “negotiations were starting and tensions were going to be reduced.”

The belief is that the North Koreans have the capability to pursue nuclear weapons because they could use the reactor to produce plutonium, Collins said, adding that there was a strong belief that Pakistan – usually a U.S. ally in the war against terrorism – has provided the technology used in the uranium enrichment process that could lead to nuclear weapons.

“It has gone beyond saber-rattling,” she said, indicating that it needs to stop.

The Associated Press quoted White House national security spokesman Sean McCormack as saying: “We don’t anticipate an immediate breakthrough, but we’re looking for progress. I think that at our urging, China, at a very senior level, pressed the North Koreans to agree to multilateral talks, as did South Korea and Japan.”

Like Japan, South Korea also will be on the sidelines initially, but both the United States and China have indicated that should change soon.

Frist led the delegation and was quoted by AP as saying that the U.S. successes in the war in Iraq apparently had an impact on moving North Korea off the mark after nearly a month of negotiations behind the scenes. Accompanying Collins on the trip are Sens. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., Mark Dayton, D-Minn., Ben Nelson, D-Neb., Bill Nelson, D-Fla., and Don Nickles, R-Okla.

At the DMZ, Collins had dinner with four front-line soldiers from Maine at Warrior Base, as their outpost is known – Sgt. William Neville of West Newfield, Sgt. Robert Pelkey of Bangor, Pvt. Anthony Haines of Eddington and Specialist Tim Harder from Saco.

The dinner consisted of MREs – meals ready to eat. The shrink-wrapped food options come in 24 entree flavors, Collins learned, and many do not have the best taste. They are heated through the addition of water and a chemical reaction attained by shaking them, she learned – taking the advice of one soldier who said the best offering was spaghetti.

“It wasn’t bad,” Collins admitted, noting that the meals include snacks, like peanut butter and crackers, and each – no matter what entree – has a little bottle of Tabasco sauce.

The soldiers’ barracks are badly in need of repair, Collins learned. “We have a lot of investment that we need to make to bring the housing up to par,” she said. “While we’ve made considerable progress, much of the housing is an embarrassment.”

One of the Maine airmen she met at Osan Air Base got her thinking about whether volunteers in the military who want to be stationed in Korea should be able to draw hardship pay. “I’m going to look into that,” she said. At Osan, on the way to the DMZ, she met two Air Force sergeants from Maine – Staff Sgt. Jennifer Meuth of Thomaston and Master Sgt. Jay Mason of China.

“The challenges we are facing with North Korea are an extraordinarily serious threat,” Collins said. “But it’s a threat that I think can be resolved with negotiations.

“The high point is being able to thank those soldiers for their work,” Collins said. As a member of the Armed Services Committee, she said, she was also able to learn of issues that the troops believed were important to maintaining this critical defensive position.

Before returning from the Easter recess April 22, Collins and the delegation who are on the U.S. Army-funded trip will visit China to meet with the Chinese health minister and review the outbreak of SARS, the severe acute respiratory syndrome.

“The Chinese response has been less than forthright” about the scope of SARS, Collins said. One report on Wednesday said that data about SARS cases, for example, did not cover the military, where the virus is believed to have taken another toehold.

As a result of fears of contamination, the delegation will be restricted from an expected visit to a denominational church in Beijing on Easter for services, she said. The U.S. Embassy, instead, plans a nondenominational service for the senators.