South Korea gives North farm help and no nuclear accord

SEOUL - South Korea failed to persuade the North to resume negotiations on its nuclear weapons during rare bilateral talks that have now ended, but US and North Korean officials met last week, signalling a possible shift in policy.

Ending four days of talks, South Korea agreed to ship 200,000 tonnes of fertiliser to the North after requests from its impoverished neighbour to ease food shortages that aid officials say could worsen, according to a joint statement issued in the North Korean city of Kaesong.

The South's quid-pro-quo attempt to include formal recognition by the North of the seriousness of the crisis over its declared nuclear weapons arsenal had pushed the bilateral talks in Kaesong beyond the planned Tuesday end. There was no direct mention of the crisis in the statement.

US officials met North Korean officials in New York last Friday, the White House said.

"This channel was used to reiterate the message directly that the North Koreans need to return to the six-party talks without conditions so we can pursue a policy of a nuclear-free peninsula," White House spokesman Trent Duffy told reporters.

South Korea and China have subtly pressed the United States to be more open to such contacts while Washington had steadfastly avoided directly negotiating with Pyongyang.

South Korea had hoped to use its bilateral talks, the first formal high-level meeting in 10 months, to put pressure on the North to return to stalled nuclear talks that bring together the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States.

"We are willing to return to the six-party talks," the top North Korean delegate to the bilateral talks, Kim Man-gil, told South Korean pool reporters after the end of the talks. But he qualified the comment with Pyongyang's previously held position that Washington must the provide the right conditions.

NO QUID PRO QUO

"The two sides agreed actively to improve South-North relations and to work for peace on the Korean peninsula based on the wish of the entire nation and in the spirit of the June 15 Joint Declaration," the brief three-point joint statement said.

That referred to an agreement the leaders of the two Koreas signed at a summit in 2000. The two sides also agreed in this week's meetings to resume ministerial talks -- stalled since the last round in May last year -- in Seoul on June 21, it said.

"It will provide help to normalise dialogue between the South and North that had been stalled for 10 months and a peaceful resolution of the North Korean nuclear problem," South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young's spokesman quoted him as saying in Seoul after the statement was released.

The North's official news agency said the South was urged to stop "cooperation with outside forces" and seeking "the showdown between the systems." The report by KCNA news agency on the agreement made no mention of the fertiliser aid.

South Korea's top delegate, Vice Unification Minister Rhee Bong-jo, said he told the North continued refusal to return to the six-way talks would make it hard to improve bilateral ties.

"It was ... difficult to include all this in the agreement, but as insufficient as it may be, the reference to peace on the Korean peninsula can be taken as an indication of this," he was quoted as saying in a South Korean pool report.

A Japanese daily, Asahi Shimbun, said on Thursday Joseph DeTrani, the deputy head of the US negotiating team at the six-party talks, met Ambassador Pak Gil-yon and his deputy Han Song-ryol, at the North's UN mission.

DeTrani urged North Korea to return to the six-way talks and abandon its nuclear programs in the meeting, Asahi said, quoting sources close to the six-way talks.

DeTrani also said the Bush administration recognises North Korea's sovereignty and has no intent to attack or invade it.

DeTrani explained a US proposal presented last June and said North Korea could get energy aid from neighbours if it promised to abandon its nuclear programs completely.

INTERNATIONAL EFFORTS

He added a comprehensive solution to North Korea's missile exports and human rights as well as the smuggling of drugs and counterfeit cash was needed to normalise U.S.-North Korea relations, Asahi said.

Tensions have mounted in recent weeks as some US officials said North Korea may be preparing for a nuclear test. Regional powers have been stepping up diplomatic efforts to restart the six-party talks, stalled for nearly a year.

On Monday, the South dangled the prospect of a "serious" new proposal if Pyongyang returned to the talks. Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon said it would offer a greater chance for compromise.

Regional powers believe North Korea has one or two nuclear weapons and possibly more than eight. It declared in February it possessed atomic arms. This month it said it had extracted spent fuel from a reactor, a move that could yield more bomb material.

The head of the Czech lower house of parliament, Lubomir Zaoralek, said in Prague he would travel to North Korea on Friday as part of international efforts to persuade its leaders to return to nuclear talks.

Arms experts say the impoverished North's nuclear program has diverted funds from the rest of the economy for decades. A lack of fertiliser and farm machinery, for example, has contributed to the North's long-running food shortages.

"These factors combined to make it impossible for the country to feed itself and therefore heavily dependent on outside assistance, which is now dwindling quite dramatically," Gerald Bourke of the World Food Programme told Radio Free Asia.

- REUTERS