South Korea urges North Korea to end nuclear stalemate
(AFP)
Updated: 2005-12-14 17:02

South Korea opened cabinet-level talks with North Korea with a plea to the latter to return soon to separate six-party talks on its nuclear program.

"Our side also called for the early resumption of six-party talks," Kim Chun-Sig, spokesman for South Korea's delegation, said.

South Korea said the implementation of an agreement on ending North Korea's nuclear weapons drive reached at the fourth round of six-nation talks in September "is the most effective way" to spur inter-Korean cooperation, he added.

South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young (R) and Kwon Ho-Ung (L), head of the North Korean delegation to South Korea take a break after their first high-level meeting with South Korean officials in Jeju Island. [AFP]

North Korea's chief delegate Kwon Ho-Ung, a cabinet councillor, made no immediate response. Instead he insisted South Korea end all joint military exercises with the United States, Kim said.

"There was no immediate answer from the North Korean side. They just listened sincerely to what our side said," he said.

Seoul and Washington, which stations 32,500 troops in South Korea, have been military allies for decades and regularly stage joint military drills aimed at deterring North Korean aggression.

Pyongyang's long-term strategy of driving a wedge between the two allies has been helped by recent differences over the nuclear standoff between hardliners in Washington and advocates of Seoul's policy of reconciliation with North Korea.

Chung is scheduled to travel Sunday to Washington for talks with policymakers there on the nuclear stalemate. The six-nation talks group the two Koreas, China, the US, Japan and Russia.

North Korea said on Sunday that the nuclear disarmament talks would be suspended indefinitely because of US financial sanctions imposed on it.

The North agreed in principle in September to dismantle its nuclear weapons program in exchange for diplomatic and economic benefits and security guarantees.

The latest session, however, ended in stalemate last month, with Pyongyang urging Washington to lift sanctions on its firms.

The US Treasury Department in September told US financial institutions to stop dealing with a Macao bank, Banco Delta Asia, which it accused of being a willing front for North Korean counterfeiting.

A month later the US blacklisted eight North Korean companies allegedly involved in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Last week US ambassador to Seoul Alexander Vershbow called Pyongyang a "criminal regime" engaged in illegal activities including money laundering and counterfeiting.

North Korea angrily denounced Vershbow's remarks as a "declaration of war" and on Wednesday called for his expulsion from South Korea.

At Wednesday's inter-Korean talks, North Korea avoided discussion of the dispute over sanctions while trying to focus on inter-Korean ties, Kim said.

"The North's side did not raise the issue," he said. "They suggested the two Koreas should upgrade relations."

The inter-Korean dialogue also covered other thorny issues such as prisoners of war, military talks and the delayed opening of cross-border railways, he said.

Though economic exchanges have greatly increased following an inter-Korean summit in 2000, North Korea has balked at holding high-level military talks on easing tension, after two initial rounds.

"Our side stressed that progress in the military field is essential to development of inter-Korean relations," Kim said.

He said South Korea explained its position on how to work out a new peace mechanism for the Korean peninsula that would replace a fragile truce which ended the 1950-53 Korean War.