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.