Seoul bids to woo NK back to talks
 |  Satellite image of North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear reactor. |
| |
| RELATED |
• China, South Korea pile on pressure
|
|
SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) -- On the first day of talks between South and North Korea in nearly a year, the delegation from the South offered the North a "significant proposal" to rejoin the six-party talks on Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions.
South Korean Vice Unification Minister Rhee Bong-Jo would not describe the proposal for reporters, other than to say that it was made to "promote substantial progress."
The delegation from the North listened to the proposal carefully, one official said, but made no reply.
The South delegation stressed the importance of maintaining a nuclear-free Korean peninsula and said, "North Korea's possession of nuclear weapons cannot be tolerated.
"If the nuclear-free Korean peninsula is not maintained, then South-North reconciliation and cooperation is also impossible," Rhee said.
During the meeting, officials from the North Korea delegation asked the South delegation for food and fertilizer aid.
The two-day talks end Tuesday.
South Korean delegation members proposed another meeting at the ministerial level in June.
In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the United States had been in touch with the South and that Washington was appreciative "that they are indeed raising these issues of the importance of getting back to the six-party talks."
"We've certainly supported their efforts to convince North Korea to come back to the table," Boucher said.
"There is a lot of international pressure and urging for North Korea to return to the talks and to return there seriously."
The talks come at a time when U.S. officials have expressed concern over the possibility Pyongyang may be preparing to test a nuclear bomb.
U.S. National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley on Sunday warned North Korea that conducting a nuclear test would be a serious act of "defiance."
"Action would have to be taken," Hadley told CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer."
North Korea agreed to six-party talks with the United States, Russia, China, South Korea and Japan, but opted out of those talks in September 2004, citing a 'hostile" U.S. policy towards it.
Then, in February, Pyongyang declared it had nuclear weapons and would continue its boycott of talks indefinitely unless Washington agreed to one-on-one talks.
The Bush administration has refused, arguing that the issue affects the entire region and therefore the other parties should be included.
Last week, Pyongyang released a statement identical to one it made two years ago, declaring that it had finished extracting 8,000 fuel rods from its reactor at Yongbyon, which it shut down a month ago, according to a report distributed by the Korean Central News Agency, the North's official news organ.
That step would allow the North Koreans to reprocess the spent fuel into weapons-grade plutonium -- after the rods are cooled, a process that could take two to three months -- but the KCNA report did not indicate whether they were preparing to do so.
The statement said North Korea 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.
Pyongyang withdrew from its nuclear agreements in 2002 and restarted Yongbyon, which it had shut down in 1994. It kicked out U.N. inspectors and monitors as well.
CNN Seoul Bureau Chief Sohn Jie-Ae contributed to this report
