North Korea urged to give up nuclear weapons

SOUTH Korea urged North Korea yesterday to give up its nuclear programme after US officials said the communist state told Washington it had atomic bombs and could make more.

The head of South Korea’s delegation at talks in Pyongyang said the North’s declared possession of nuclear weapons was a security threat that broke a 1991 nuclear-free declaration seen as a cornerstone of ties between the neighbours.

South Korean Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun underscored the US demand made at talks in Beijing last week, pool reports from Pyongyang said.

But North Korea’s ruling party newspaper dismissed the suggestion of ditching its declared deterrent as a non-starter without a written US pledge not to attack.

The US was “talking nonsense over the talks in Beijing that there will be no security of the system nor provision of rewards to the DPRK (North Korea) even though it gives up the 'nuclear programme," said the daily Rodong Sinmun.

“Those who know politics and understand the reality would not have made such infantile and nonsensical remarks over the negotiation on the nuclear issue,” it said in a commentary that did not address whether North Korea had nuclear weapons.

Rodong Sinmun repeated Pyongyang’s longstanding demand for a non-aggression treaty but made no new demands.

“The DPRK will be left with no option but to do everything to defend itself unless the US legally guarantees no use of arms including nukes against the DPRK,” said the statement, published by the North’s state-run KCNA news agency.

South Korea’s Jeong said North Korea’s nuclear programme was “unhelpful for inter-Korean relations”, according to the media pool reports of his opening remarks to the North.

North Korean delegation head Kim Ryung-sung appealed to Korean unity and said “since it’s the first such talks for your new government, let both sides be wise and cooperative to produce good results”, according the pool report.

In Tokyo, Japan’s defence minister said North Korea was wrong to believe announcing it had atomic weapons would ensure the survival of its system and that the United States and China would never accept a nuclear-armed North Korea.

“It will be a big miscalculation if it is reckoning that remarks that it has nuclear weapons will lead to the maintenance of its regime,” Defence Minister Shigeru Ishiba said.

Before leaving Seoul, Jeong said he would tell Pyongyang the stance of South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun’s government was “it is unacceptable for North Korea to have nuclear weapons.”