South Korea said yesterday that North Korea's latest offer to freeze its nuclear programs would help create the atmosphere for a fresh round of talks on ending tensions over the communist country's atomic weapons development.
On Tuesday, North Korea reiterated its willingness to freeze its "nuclear activities" in exchange for US aid and being delisted from Washington's roster of terrorism sponsoring nations.
It specified it was "set to refrain from test and production of nuclear weapons and stop even operating nuclear power industry for a peaceful purpose as first-phase measures of the package solution."
"We positively evaluate the North Korean statement because it stated more specifically what measures it was willing to take, and reconfirmed once again its willing to resolve the issue through dialogue," Foreign Minister Yoon Young-kwan said in a regular briefing.
"We expect the announcement to help create atmosphere for a second round of six-nation talks."
For months, the US, China, Russia, Japan and the two Koreas have been scrambling to arrange a new round of six-nations negotiations on the nuclear crisis. The first round last August in Beijing ended without much progress.
Russian and South Korean officials have said the talks are unlikely to take place this month.
Washington has rejected the North's proposals in the past, saying it wants North Korea to verifiably begin dismantling its nuclear weapons programs before it delivers any concessions.
But US Secretary of State Colin Powell responded favorably to the latest North Korean offer, which would freeze nuclear projects for weapons and power production as a first step.
"It was an interesting statement. It was a positive statement. They, in effect, said they won't test, and they implied that they would give up all aspects of their nuclear program, not just weapons program," he said Tuesday in Washington.
Powell said he hoped the proposal "will allow us to move more rapidly toward six-party framework talks."
Also yesterday, Yoon appeared to play down the significance of a visit to North Korea this week by a group of Americans who could possibly tour the North's disputed nuclear plant at Yongbyon. Yoon said he doesn't think it would have much impact on the nuke talks. The US delegation is expected to visit North Korea until Saturday.
The Yongbyon complex is at the heart of the standoff, and there has been no outside access to the facility since North Korea expelled UN nuclear inspectors at the end of 2002.
North Korea said yesterday, in a dispatch carried over its official KCNA news agency, that the nuclear standoff should be solved peacefully "to ease the tension and ensure peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula."
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