Rice meets President Roh on Iraq, North Korea

Rice meets President Roh on Iraq, North Korea

Jack Kim, Reuters, Seoul

U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice thanked South Korea on Friday for sticking to plans to send troops to Iraq, winding up a short Asian tour with talks that also covered North Korea's nuclear arms.

Rice, who flew in from Beijing after talks with Chinese leaders, carried a letter from President George W. Bush to South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun. She said she had come to Seoul to "reaffirm that the relationship is very, very strong".

Roh told Rice that Seoul and Washington needed to "work to resolve the North Korean nuclear problem swiftly through bilateral cooperation", his spokesman said. Rice said Bush was committed to ending the nuclear row with diplomacy and dialog.

In evening talks with Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon, Rice thanked Washington's Asian ally of 50 years for support in Iraq and for standing by plans to send 3,000 troops there next month despite the killing of a South Korean man by militants.

"I want to thank you on behalf of the United States and on behalf of the president for the great strength that the Republic of Korea has demonstrated in supporting the effort in Iraq," she said to Ban in the presence of reporters.

Rice expressed Bush's condolences to the family of Kim Sun-il, a young Arabic interpreter who was beheaded in June after being kidnapped by militants demanding that Seoul cancel the deployment. Roh rejected the demand.

"We have great admiration for how the country handled this situation," she said.

Ban said Kim's killing "reminded us of the necessity of the international community to unite stronger to fight against international terrorism". He asked Washington to continue to help South Korea during its troops mission in Northern Iraq.

Earlier about two dozen left-wing activists staged a protest near the U.S. embassy in central Seoul, condemning the U.S.-led war in Iraq and demanding a halt to South Korea's plan to send troops. Polls show the country evenly split on the deployment.

In her short stay in South Korea, home to 37,500 U.S. troops who help Seoul defend itself against the heavily armed Communist North, Rice also met her counterpart, Kwon Chin-ho.

While her public remarks focused on Iraq, her private meetings with Ban were expected to deal with an impasse over North Korea's nuclear programs -- a major regional security threat that emerged in October 2002.

China has hosted three rounds of inconclusive talks with the United States, North and South Korea, Russia and Japan on how to resolve the crisis. Washington has branded North Korea part of an "axis of evil" along with Iran and pre-war Iraq.

The United States believes North Korea has a small number of nuclear devices and wants Pyongyang to halt programs it says could be used to make more bombs.