Seoul asks Bush to focus on nuclear crisis
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-11-06 17:17

US President George W. Bush and his South Korean counterpart Roh Moo-Hyun have agreed to step up efforts to resume multilateral talks aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear weapons programme, officials said.

The agreement came when Roh called Bush late Friday to congratulate the US president on his re-election, the presidential Blue House said.

"The two presidents agreed to step up joint efforts to ensure that six-party talks may take place at the earliest possible date," spokesman Kim Jong-Min of the Blue House said.

"President Roh proposed that the two countries give top priority to resolving the North Korean nuclear issue so as to provide a decisive momentum to bring about peace on the Korean peninsula," he said.

"President Bush gave an affirmative response," he said.

Roh and Bush also agreed to discuss in detail the stand-off over North Korea's nuclear drive when they meet on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Santiago, Chile later this month.

The North Korean nuclear issue was also high on the agenda when South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon met with his Japanese counterpart Nobutaka Machimura here Saturday, officials of the foreign ministry here said.

Machimura, who arrived here late Friday for a brief visit until late Saturday, also discussed with Ban other pending issues including a summit between South Korea and Japan due to take place in Japan next month.

Pyongyang failed to turn up for a fourth round of the six-party talks scheduled for last month, including the two Koreas, the United States, Japan China and Russia.

The confrontation began in October 2002 when US officials said North Korea had admitted in a bilateral meeting to pursuing a covert uranium-enrichment programme.

North Korea, however, has since denied running such a programme, and has demanded food and energy aid and diplomatic concessions in return for refreezing an older, plutonium-based nuclear arms programme, mothballed in 1994.

Han Song-Ryol, deputy chief of North Korea's mission to the United Nations, this week told the liberal Hankyoreh daily that Pyongyang does not oppose the framework of six-party talks but was deeply suspicious of US moves.

"We suspect the United States has been using the six-way talks to earn time for its invasion of our country," he said, adding Washington's hostility had prompted Pyongyang to strengthen its "nuclear deterrent force".

Close

Today's Top News     Top World News
Nation likely to be 3rd largest trading power         Nutritional imbalance plagues people         Mine blast kills 33, injures 6 in Henan         Coal mining: Most deadly job in China         Shen and Zhao win Cup of China         Consumer price remains stable in October	Police lose control of Mosul amid uprising       Arafat buried in Chaotic scenes in West Bank       U.S. may use Iraq meeting to engage Iran       Bush vows second-term push for Palestinian state       Dutch to withdraw troops from Iraq in March       Haiti PM orders arrest warrant against Aristide