North Korea's offer to freeze its nuclear arms programs would be acceptable to South Korea and its allies only if it were an initial step toward dismantling all atomic facilities, Seoul's foreign minister said yesterday.
Ban Ki-moon said South Korea, the US and other parties to the nuclear talks set to resume this month would reciprocate with "corresponding measures" if the communist North made clear that its proposed freeze was a short-term measure.
"A freeze itself is not enough," Ban said, referring to a proposal made by North Korea in December.
"But if we can confirm that North Korea will pledge that the freeze is the short-term measure in the process of ultimately dismantling the nuclear programs, and if that can be verified , then I believe that there will be corresponding measures," he said in a lecture to senior South Korean journalists in Seoul.
North Korea agreed on Tuesday to attend a second round of multiparty negotiations on the nuclear impasse from Feb. 25 in Beijing. The six-party talks group both Koreas, the US, China, Japan and Russia.
Pyongyang proposed in December an initial package deal in which it would freeze its "nuclear activities" in exchange for security guarantees and energy and economic assistance from the US and other powers.
The US also wants North Korea to commit to dismantling any nuclear arms programs. Washington has offered then to lay out in detail how it could guarantee not to attack the state US President George W. Bush has called part of an "axis of evil" with Iran and pre-war Iraq.
The six countries met in Beijing last August but failed to go beyond stating their respective positions in a dispute that flared up in October, 2002 when US officials said North Korea had admitted to operating a covert nuclear weapons program.
Amid preparations for the next round of talks, China's UN ambassador said on Wednesday the six countries may set up a panel of junior diplomats to keep the lines of communication open between high-level negotiations.
Ambassador Wang Guangya told a news conference he hoped North Korea would accept the idea of a mechanism to maintain contact among the parties. South Korean officials have endorsed the goal of setting up a working group for technical issues and details.
During a Cabinet-level meeting running through Friday in Seoul, South Korean Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun urged the North to commit to a complete dismantling of its nuclear programs during the six-nation meeting.
Outside Seoul's Shilla Hotel, the venue of Cabinet-level talks, 20 South Korean protesters shouted slogans such as ``Stop all South-North Korean exchanges until North Korea dismantles its nuclear programs!''
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