N. Korea wants to re-start talks with Seoul
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SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) -- North Korea has proposed working-level meetings with South Korea early next week, ahead of the five-year anniversary of the historic inter-Korean summit, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said Saturday.
Yonhap, quoting the North's state-run Korean Central News Agency and other media, said the proposal to meet Monday and Tuesday in the border town of Kaesong was contained in a message to South Korea's unification minister.
Kwon Ho-ung, who heads the North's delegation to the inter-Korean ministerial talks, sent a telegram to Seoul's Unification Minister Chung Dong-young on Saturday, KCNA said.
"We have the pleasure to notify you that we will send three delegates and three suite members to Kaesong from May 16 to 17 for the working-level talks between the authorities of the North and the South," the telegram to Seoul said.
The Koreas have been unable to avoid the "road of conflict," which goes against the basic spirit of the June 15 joint declaration, the North said.
The June 15, 2000, meeting between then-South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il resulted in a joint declaration by their leaders, which is credited with helping to ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
North Korea said another meeting needed to take place so the basic principles of the declaration are not forgotten.
South and North Korean officials last met in Kaesong in late April for talks on helping the reclusive state combat a bird flu outbreak.
They were the first talks between both sides since July last year.
Officials in Seoul could not immediately confirm whether South would accept the proposal or what specific issues would be dealt with, Reuters reports.
The proposal comes amid a stalemate over North Korea's nuclear program with Pyongyang seemingly attempting to raise the stakes in its war of nerves with the United States.
Six-party talks between the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, China and Russia last met almost a year ago with very little progress made towards ending North Korea's nuclear ambitions.
Earlier this week, Pyongyang announced it had completed preliminary moves to bolster its nuclear arsenal, causing concern in South Korea and neighboring Japan. (Full story)
In Wednesday's statement, the KCNA said Pyonygang was "taking necessary measures to bolster its nuclear arsenal for the defensive purpose of coping with the prevailing situation, with a main emphasis on developing the self-reliant nuclear power industry."
The North Koreans have previously claimed to have extracted the rods and reprocessed the fuel into plutonium, accounting for the five to six nuclear weapons the United States and the International Atomic Energy Agency believe the country already has.
North Korea's nuclear program is under more intense scrutiny than usual after the country announced in February that it had nuclear weapons, and then tested a conventional short-range missile, firing it into the Sea of Japan on May 1.
On Tuesday, China urged restraint but rejected using sanctions to prod North Korea to return to talks, with a spokesman saying Beijing's political and trade relations with its neighbor should be kept separate.
A U.S. Defense Department official said that recent satellite images indicate the North may be preparing for a nuclear weapons test -- a prospect that IAEA chief Mohammed ElBaradei chief said could open "a Pandora's box" with "disastrous political repercussions."
Correspondent Sohn Jie-Ae contributed to this report
