South Korea offered North Korea unspecified compensation yesterday for giving up its nuclear program and the US said it had "no intention" of invading the reclusive nation as six-country talks on Pyongyang's atomic ambitions convened.
Amid an outwardly collegial atmosphere, the tensions of the moment -- and the 16-month standoff between the US and the North that led up to it -- were clear.
The North's delegate, Kim Kye Gwan, said he would be "maintaining our principles" hours after his country issued a last-minute demand for compensation for shutting down the program, and Washington's delegate said nothing but a wholesale elimination of the nuclear activities would do.
"The United States seeks complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement of all North Korea's nuclear programs, both plutonium and uranium," Assistant US Secretary of State James Kelly said in opening remarks.
North Korea's partners in the talks -- South Korea, China, the US, Japan and Russia -- all say they want a nuclear weapons-free Korean Peninsula.
At issue are allegations that Pyongyang has a uranium-based weapons program as well as its known plutonium-based one. North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's government has denied having a uranium-based program.
The dispute erupted in October 2002 when the US said North Korea had acknowledged the existence of a nuclear program that violated a 1994 agreement that bound Pyongyang to renounce nuclear development in exchange for oil and other aid.
After the first session yesterday, South Korea said it had proposed "countermeasures" if the North froze its nuclear program and showed signs of dismantling it. Seoul's head delegate, Lee Soo-hyuck, said he presented the proposal during the opening session.
"If it is such a freeze, we can push for countermeasures," Lee told reporters, using a term that is believed to refer to compensation for the North's giving up its nuclear ambitions.
He didn't elaborate, and it was unclear whether the US had directly endorsed the proposal.
Last week, South Korean officials said Seoul was ready to resume energy aid to its communist neighbor after the dispute is resolved and the North dismantles its nuclear programs.
Lee said he had told North Korea that its freeze must cover all nuclear programs and be followed "in a short period of time" by steps toward a complete and verifiable dismantling of nuclear capabilities.
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