South Korea calls for talks to resolve nuclear dispute peacefully

DESPITE hints by North Korea that it might withdraw from the global nuclear nonproliferation treaty, South Korea yesterday said dialogue is the only viable way to resolve the dispute peacefully.

US officials were sceptical and spoke about using economic pressure on the communist state to abandon its nuclear ambitions. Pyongyang's longtime ally, Russia, warned it not to back out of the regime.

In its latest defiant gesture, North Korea indicated on Sunday it might abandon the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons a move that would deepen the crisis over the isolated country's decision to restart its nuclear facilities and expel UN nuclear inspectors.

A withdrawal from the treaty means the North is intent on raising pressure on the United States to negotiate, and is prepared to turn its back on its international obligations to do so. However, a withdrawal would be largely a symbolic gesture since US officials believe North Korea already has one or two nuclear bombs.

In recent weeks, the North cut UN seals and impeded surveillance equipment at a nuclear reactor in Yongbyon and its spent fuel pond, a fuel fabrication plant and a reprocessing facility. North Korea had agreed to freeze the facilities under a 1994 deal with the US in exchange for energy supplies.

Pyongyang said earlier this month it planned to reactivate the nuclear facilities to produce electricity because Washington had halted promised energy sources. After Washington warned it away from reviving the Yongbyon plant, North Korea said US policy was leading the region to the "brink of nuclear war".

Outgoing South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, who leaves office in February, vowed yesterday to continue his "sunshine" policy of engaging North Korea. Critics argue the policy gives North Korea too much in return for little.

"I'm confident that our sunshine policy would eventually lead North Korea to reform and change," Kim said, adding that the West's past containment policy with the old Soviet Union and China had failed.

"Cuba is another good example that containment and isolation cannot succeed. The United States even waged war with Vietnam but failed to change the situation," he said.

But President-elect Roh Moo-hyun told the military to set up a contingency plan in case the US reduces the strength of its 37,000 troops in South Korea as a deterrent against the North. There are no confirmed US plans for a withdrawal. But South Korea is worried that if the US reduces its forces reacting to rising anti-US sentiment that would make it more vulnerable to an attack from the North.