South Korea urged North Korea to honor a deal to shut down its nuclear programs but the North blamed the US for the delay when the two Koreas met yesterday for high-level talks.
The hold-ups in Pyongyang's promised nuclear disarmament and in Seoul's rice aid were expected to loom large at the four-day ministerial meeting.
More than six weeks have passed since the deadline for the North to shut down its reactor as the first step in a February six-nation nuclear disarmament agreement.
A banking dispute with the US which is blocking the deal remains unresolved.
The North Korean delegation said the US was at fault.
"Your side knows well why the implementation of the Feb. 13 agreement is being delayed. The US is responsible for the delay, not our side," chief delegate Kwon Ho-ung told the South's team.
His comments at the closed-door meeting were quoted by South Korean delegate Ko Gyoung-bin, who briefed the media.
Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung had urged the North to implement the pact as soon as possible, saying it is the key to peace on the peninsula.
Seoul plans joint efforts with China, Japan and Russia to persuade North Korea to make a start. All are members of the six-nation process, along with the US and North Korea itself.
The South Korean, Japanese and Chinese foreign ministers, at talks in the southern island of Jeju on Sunday, are expected to discuss the issue.
And South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-soon will hold similar talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday on the sidelines of the Asia Cooperation Dialogue forum, the foreign ministry said.
Yesterday the North -- which staged a short-range missile test last week -- took the South to task for its joint military exercises with the US, and urged it to repeal its tough National Security Law and reject outside interference.
"The North Korean side said the two Koreas should resist pressure from outside forces in the settlement of national [inter-Korean] issues," said briefer Ko.
He said there was no direct mention of Seoul's decision to delay its first shipment of crucial rice aid until Pyongyang starts denuclearizing.
Pro-Pyongyang media have criticized the move, saying inter-Korean issues are not tied to the six-party process.
The South called for practical steps to solve a dispute over prisoners of war and abductees, but the North reportedly made no specific response.
The South says the North has abducted 485 of its people since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War and failed to send home 548 POWs. The North says no South Koreans are held against their will.
The South also proposed the resumption of talks between defense ministers, after the first and only meeting almost seven years ago.
It pressed for the gradual opening of cross-border railway services following a historic May 17 test run, and greater economic cooperation.
Relations worsened last year with the North's missile launches and nuclear test but improved after the February nuclear deal.
At the last ministerial round in March, the South agreed in principle to resume annual rice and fertilizer aid.
But it delayed the first shipment of rice, out of an annual total of 400,000 tonnes, until its neighbor starts shutting down its atomic program.
The North refuses to move until it receives US$25 million which had been frozen in a Macau bank under US-inspired sanctions.
The US said the accounts were unfrozen in March but the North has had problems finding a foreign bank to handle the transfer.
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