South Korea to press North Korea to scrap nuclear arms

2.00pm

South Korea said it would press North Korea to scrap nuclear weapons at talks starting today as US officials said Pyongyang had admitted reprocessing fuel to make more atomic bombs.

"The government plans to strongly urge the North to change its attitude, including scrapping its nuclear development," said a presidential statement on Saturday after a meeting of the National Security Council.

South Korea will face resistance from the North over attempts to discuss the issue as the North has insisted it is a matter between Pyongyang and Washington.

The United States has said it will keep pursuing a diplomatic solution to defuse the North Korean crisis despite Pyongyang's recent disclosure to US officials that it had nuclear arms and was reprocessing spent fuel rods.

American intelligence agencies have said the North has enough plutonium for one or two weapons or has built one or two weapons, but they do not believe it has done substantial reprocessing.

"The government will continue its efforts to peacefully resolve the North Korea nuclear issue through close coordination with the US and strengthened cooperation with other concerned countries," the South's presidential statement said.

"Officials shared the view that it would be a grave violation of international rules if the North's revelation is true."

The South's delegation, led by Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun, heads to Pyongyang today for three days of talks.

A North Korea armed with nuclear weapons would increase the threat to neighbouring Japan, China and South Korea and the 37,000 US troops based in the South, and would make it trickier to craft a solution to the six-month nuclear standoff.

President Bush and Chinese President Hu Jintao today discussed the North Korean crisis and the goal of keeping the Korean peninsula free of nuclear weapons, the White House said.

"The two leaders discussed recent multilateral meetings in Beijing concerning North Korea's nuclear weapons program and the goal of a denuclearized peninsula," said White House spokeswoman Mercy Viana.

"The president said he appreciated the Chinese government's full and active participation in those discussions. The two leaders said that they would stay in touch on this issue," Viana added.

The US and Chinese leaders spoke for 15 minutes, the White House said, offering no other details.

US considers next step

Seoul will work closely with allies Washington and Tokyo, South Korean Foreign Minister Yoon Young-kwan said on Saturday after a briefing by Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly, who headed the US delegation to the Beijing talks.

Kelly later flew to Tokyo to brief Japan on the talks. A Japanese official said the United States and Japan agreed to seek a peaceful solution to the crisis.

North Korea said on Friday it had made a bold new proposal at the talks but had learned nothing new from Washington. The statement, carried by the North's KCNA news agency, did not mention nuclear weapons.

North Korea also implied at the Beijing talks that it might conduct a nuclear weapons test and stated its intention to supply weapons to other countries, US officials said.

US intelligence agencies do not believe North Korea has reprocessed the spent fuel at its nuclear complex at Yongbyon, a step that experts see as a "red line" that, if crossed, would warrant a tougher US response.

Reprocessing would give Pyongyang material for several more nuclear weapons that experts fear it could sell to militants.

If the North Koreans "are telling the truth (about reprocessing), then we have a massive intelligence failure" as US spy agencies have not detected the reprocessing in advance and "if they are not telling the truth, it's a hell of a way to start out negotiations with a new lie," a US official said.

Most Seoul newspapers were scathing about the North's moves.

The JoongAng Ilbo daily said: "We have reached a point where we must fundamentally rethink our policy toward the North."

A longtime critic of South Korean economic aid to North Korea, the conservative Chosun Ilbo, said Pyongyang's nuclear brinkmanship was "not only anachronistic but a dangerous gamble."

A senior US official told Reuters in Washington that while sanctions, including a crackdown on hard currency flows to the communist regime, was a serious possibility, the administration would likely start by renewing a bid to have the UN Security Council condemn Pyongyang's nuclear activities.

He and other senior officials did not rule out more talks with North Korea, either in a three-way forum with China or with other key states, like South Korea and Japan.

- REUTERS