South Korea said it would press North Korea to scrap nuclear weapons at talks starting today as US officials said Pyongyang had admitted reprocessing fuel to make more atomic bombs.
"The government plans to strongly urge the North to change its attitude, including scrapping its nuclear development," said a presidential statement yesterday after a meeting of the National Security Council.
South Korea will face resistance from the North over attempts to discuss the issue as the North has insisted it is a matter between Pyongyang and Washington.
The US has said it will keep pursuing a diplomatic solution to defuse the North Korean crisis despite Pyongyang's recent disclosure to US officials that it had nuclear arms and was reprocessing spent fuel rods.
American intelligence agencies have said the North has enough plutonium for one or two weapons or has built one or two weapons, but they do not believe it has done substantial reprocessing.
"The government will continue its efforts to peacefully resolve the North Korea nuclear issue through close coordination with the US and strengthened cooperation with other concerned countries," the South's presidential statement said.
"Officials shared the view that it would be a grave violation of international rules if the North's revelation is true."
The South's delegation, led by Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun, heads to Pyongyang today for three days of talks.
A North Korea armed with nuclear weapons would increase the threat to neighboring Japan, China and South Korea and the 37,000 US troops based in the South, and would make it trickier to craft a solution to the six-month nuclear standoff.
Seoul will work closely with allies Washington and Tokyo, South Korean Foreign Minister Yoon Young-kwan said yesterday after a briefing by Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly, who headed the US delegation to the Beijing talks.
Kelly later flew to Tokyo to brief Japan on the talks.
North Korea said on Friday it had made a bold new proposal at the talks but had learned nothing new from Washington. The statement, carried by the North's KCNA news agency, did not mention nuclear weapons.
North Korea also implied at the Beijing talks that it might conduct a nuclear weapons test and stated its intention to supply weapons to other countries, US officials said.
US intelligence agencies do not believe North Korea has reprocessed the spent fuel at its nuclear complex at Yongbyon, a step that experts see as a "red line" that, if crossed, would warrant a tougher US response.
Reprocessing would give Pyongyang material for several more nuclear weapons that experts fear it could sell to militants.
If the North Koreans "are telling the truth [about reprocessing], then we have a massive intelligence failure" as US spy agencies have not detected the reprocessing in advance and "if they are not telling the truth, it's a hell of a way to start out negotiations with a new lie," a US official said.
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