South Korea will push U.S. dialog with North Korea

South Korea will push U.S. dialog with North Korea

Paul Eckert, Seoul, Reuters

South Korea must do all it can to bolster U.S. proponents of
dialog to solve the North Korean nuclear crisis, Seoul's foreign
minister said on Wednesday, a week before a pivotal U.S.-South
Korean summit in Washington.

Ahead of President Roh Moo-hyun's trip, Seoul has been
buffeted both by North Korean nuclear brinkmanship and by reports
-- swiftly denied by Washington -- of a U.S. policy shift.

In the latest report to emerge after last month's U.S.-North
Korean nuclear talks in Beijing, The Washington Times reported on
Wednesday that North Korea had threatened to export nuclear arms
and to add to its arsenal.

The U.S. State Department has said that North Korea's
negotiator, Li Gun, told Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly
that Pyongyang had nuclear weapons.

Citing U.S. officials familiar with the talks, the Times said
Li had told Kelly that Pyongyang would "export nuclear weapons,
add to its current arsenal or test a nuclear device".

Foreign Minister Yoon Young-kwan told a gathering of
journalists on Wednesday that, after revelations from the Beijing
talks, "one gets a sense of peril watching the debate among
moderates and hardliners among U.S. policymakers".

With the forces in Washington who doubt the utility of talking
to North Korea gaining ground, South Korea must "do all it can to
strengthen the hand of dialog advocates", Yoon said.

The minister said that North Korea must understand that its
demands for regime security and aid in exchange for halting its
nuclear programs would not go down well in the United States.

"The United States is not likely to accept demands for rewards
after the unilateral violation of the NPT (nuclear Non-
Proliferation Treaty)," he said.

"To do so would set a bad precedent," he added.

The nuclear crisis erupted in October, when Washington said
the North had admitted to a covert program to make highly
enriched uranium for nuclear arms in addition to a plutonium
program frozen under a 1994 pact with the United States.

Roh, who took office in February amid the deepening nuclear
impasse and friction in the 50-year-old South Korean-U.S.
alliance, begins a week-long tour of the United States on Sunday.

The centerpiece of Roh's first official overseas trip and
first ever visit to the United States is a May 14 summit with
President George W. Bush. Bush's hawkish stance on North Korea
has caused strains with Seoul, which since 2000 has plied
Pyongyang with aid and tried to improve ties.

Aside from fears that Bush might attack North Korea after
Iraq, there was consternation in Seoul at a New York Times report
on Monday that Washington was shifting from a decade-old policy
of preventing Pyongyang from producing nuclear weapons to working
to block it from exporting weapons-grade atomic materials.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan denied there was any
shift in U.S. policy for dealing with the North Korean threat.