Pyeongyang meeting a nuclear-rice standoff

PYEONGYANG ― The two Koreas began a three-day minister-level talks as planned in Pyeongyang yesterday, shortly after North Korea’s assertion that it possessed nuclear weapons.
South Korea demanded that the North dismantle its nuclear development programs, but the North had no substantive response, its long-standing response to Seoul’s concerns.
In his keynote address at the conference yesterday, South Korean Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun reportedly said that North Korea’s nuclear weapons were a clear violation of the 1992 Joint Declaration of the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. The South Korean spokesman at the talks, Shin Un-sang, added that Mr. Jeong said a nuclear-armed North Korea was a grave threat to the peninsula’s peace and security, and urged the North to stop the programs for the sake of inter-Korean relations.
Mr. Jeong also asked for confirmation that the North had told U.S. officials that it had nuclear arms. There was no reply, Mr. Shin said.
“Our keynote speech mostly talked about dismantling North Korean nuclear weapons programs,” a Seoul official said. “Economic cooperation projects were not mentioned.”
Kim Ryong-Song, a North Korean cabinet counselor, is leading the North Korean delegation. He complained that military drills conducted by South Korea and the United States and the investigation in Seoul into the transfer of at least $500 million to North Korea just before the 2000 inter-Korean summit hindered inter-Korean relations. He said he wanted to focus on implementing the inter-Korean declaration agreed at the summit, which largely deals with aid and economic cooperation.
A South Korean official said, “Unless we can roughly agree on how to resolve the nuclear issue, discussing economic projects and rice loans to the North will be difficult.” In January, ministers from the two Koreas met in Seoul, but broke down over the inclusion of a mention of nuclear issues in a report on the meeting.

by Joint Press Corps