Senior South, North Koreans meet; no nuclear talk

Senior South, North Koreans meet; no nuclear talk

Jack Kim, Reuters/Seoul/Jakarta

North and South Korea held their highest-level meeting in five years in Jakarta on Friday while other officials met to tackle a bird flu outbreak in the North -- nine months after all bilateral dialog broke off.

The second-ranking leaders of the two Koreas met briefly on the sidelines of an Asia-Africa summit in Jakarta and discussed regional problems, but they did not discuss the North's nuclear programs, North Korean officials told Reuters in Jakarta.

"Very good, very good," South Korean Prime Minister Lee Hae- chan told reporters through an interpreter when asked how the meeting with the North's number two leader Kim Yong-nam went.

Asked if there were plans for another meeting on Saturday, he said: "We are working on that."

In the North Korean city of Kaesong, farm and political officials were meeting to coordinate efforts to battle the bird flu outbreak, which prompted the North to cull 210,000 chickens.

Despite the flurry of North-South diplomacy, it was not clear whether the North was ready to resume formal dialog since it broke off contact last July after the South airlifted 468 North Korean defectors from Vietnam, angering Pyongyang.

There was also no sign of progress on regional efforts to end Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions.

Instead, officials from other countries voiced conflicting views on whether greater pressure must be applied on the North to bring it back to stalled six-country nuclear talks.

In a speech to the summit, Kim Yong-nam -- president of North Korea's parliament -- repeated past accusations that the United States was threatening the North, including by "conducting large scale nuclear war exercises one after another."

"Under such circumstances, it stands to reason, indeed, for (North) Korea to equip itself with a nuclear deterrent as a legitimate self-defensive means," he said.

But Kim added that denuclearizing the Korean peninsula was a goal of Pyongyang, and said "our country remains unchanged in its principled position to resolve the nuclear issue peacefully through dialogue and negotiation".

Kim met Lee Hae-chan for about 20 minutes, the North Korean officials in Jakarta said.

"The president (Kim Yong-nam) emphasized the importance (of living) up to the June 15 North-South joint declaration," Jong Song-il, deputy director of the North's International Organization Department, told Reuters.

The declaration was made by the two Koreas' leaders at an unprecedented summit in 2000 in the North Korean capital.

"Koreans are masters of our own destiny," Jong said.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency said the two spoke of cooperating on a dispute with Japan over desolate islands, called Tokto in Korea and Takeshima in Japan.

There was no discussion on the North Korean nuclear crisis or the stalled six-party talks, the North Korean officials said.

In Seoul, China's envoy to South Korea said it was too early to discuss referring North Korea to the United Nations Security Council for sanctions on its nuclear arms programs.

Ambassador Li Bin also told reporters there was no deadline for the North to return to the talks before the five countries trying to end its nuclear programs would begin discussions on other options.

The two Koreas, the United States, Japan, Russia and China met for three rounds without substantive progress. A fourth round never took place because Pyongyang wants Washington to drop what it calls a hostile policy.

Analysts said patience in Washington and Tokyo was wearing thin. There have been media reports that the two have set a June deadline for the next round, after which they will begin discussions on other options, including the Security Council and economic sanctions.

A senior Indonesian official told Reuters the meeting between the two Korea's leaders was informal and if there is another it would be "more formal".

Friday's meeting was cordial, despite harsh words from the North in recent months accusing the South of kidnapping and calling it "a lackey" of the United States.

Lee thanked the North for returning a fisherman who in a drunken stupor drifted north of the sea border last week.

"Fishermen should be able to live in peace," Kim replied.