Surprised delegates work to revise agenda in North

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Surprised delegates work to revise agenda in North

With Pyeongyang still silent, Seoul and Washington were quickly getting back to diplomacy Friday, a day after the revelation of North Korea's admission that it has continued its nuclear weapons program despite several commitments to end it. Seoul officials are wondering what Pyeongyang will say at ministerial talks in the North Korean capital this weekend. Seoul officials who will attend those talks were reportedly excluded from briefings by U.S. officials about the North's admission.

White House and State Department officials reiterated Thursday that Iraq and North Korea are two different cases, although they did not offer precise distinctions between the leaders of those two nations.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell echoed Seoul's Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun's comment that Pyeongyang had "some explaining to do to the international community." President George W. Bush referred to the development as "troubling and sobering," according to White House spokesman Scott McClellan.

But the U.S. position remains that it wants to resolve the issue through diplomatic channels in consultation with its allies in the region, Mr. McClellan said. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said no decision had been made on whether the light water reactors in the North and the delivery of heavy fuel oil to North Korea -- key components of the 1994 agreement between Pyeongyang and Washington on mothballing North Korea's nuclear program -- may be suspended.

In Seoul, President Kim Dae-jung said he remained hopeful of continued improvements in North Korea relations, as long as the United States chooses to seek a peaceful resolution through dialogue. The possibility that North Korea will also choose dialogue adds to the expectation, Blue House Spokeswoman Park Sun-sook said Friday.

Unification Minister Jeong said the ministerial meeting Saturday in Pyeongyang would be an opportunity to "convince the North that it must come to discussions conscientiously prepared to resolve pending issues." But officials packing for Pyeongyang were scrambling to regroup and incorporate Thursday's revelation because they reportedly were not given information about the North's admission that was passed to other security aides. Mr. Jeong reportedly was not invited to the briefing by U.S. Assistant Secretary James Kelly on Oct. 5, which was attended by Blue House special aide for national security Lim Dong-won and Foreign Minister Choi Sung-hong.

Mr. Jeong summoned the team taking part in the mission to craft an approach to the North.

"It is uncertain how the North will respond to the suggestion of discussing nuclear issues," said Rhee Bong-jo, the Unification Ministry official acting as spokesman for the meeting. "But it is clear that we are a party to this important issue on peace and stability on the peninsula."

Inter-Korea exchanges and financial assistance to the North are the agenda for the North-South talks. Officials said the nuclear issue would be raised as a parallel issue but not linked to negotiations about assistance to the poverty-stricken North.

by Lee Young-jong

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