S Korea offers energy aid to North

South Korea today revealed it had offered energy aid to impoverished North Korea as an incentive to encourage it to return to nuclear disarmament talks this month after more than a year of deadlock.

At the same time, Washington’s top diplomat called on the North to pledge at the negotiations to abandon all atomic weapons.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Seoul today for talks on the North Korea nuclear issue at the end of an Asian tour.

Earlier in Japan, Rice said the US wanted to make the arms talks a success, but cautioned the North needed to renounce its nuclear weapons.

“What we really need is a strategic decision on the part of the North that they are indeed ready to give up their nuclear weapons program,” Rice said today after meeting with Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura in Tokyo.

“Without that, these talks cannot be successful.”

Also today, a Chinese special envoy arrived in North Korea to urge it to work toward a deal in a new round of six-nation nuclear disarmament talks this month.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Liu Jianchao, refused to say what message State Councillor Tang Jiaxuan was carrying to the North, but said the “nuclear issue will … be touched upon.”

North Korea said it would return to the nuclear talks during the week of July 25 after a meeting with the top US nuclear envoy in Beijing.

The weapons negotiations – which include China, Japan, Russia, the two Koreas and the US - last convened in June 2004.