South Korea said it would press North Korea to scrap nuclear weapons at talks starting tomorrow as US officials said Pyongyang had admitted reprocessing fuel to make more atomic bombs.
"The government plans to strongly urge the North to change its attitude, including scrapping its nuclear development," said a South Korean presidential statement today after a meeting of the National Security Council.
South Korea will face resistance from the North over attempts to discuss the issue as the North has insisted it is a matter between Pyongyang and Washington.
The United States has said it will keep pursuing a diplomatic solution to defuse the North Korean crisis despite Pyongyang's recent disclosure to US officials that it had nuclear arms and was reprocessing spent fuel rods.
US President George W. Bush "continues to believe that this can be a matter that will be solved through diplomacy," White House spokesman Mr Ari Fleischer said.
US officials said North Korea revealed at a meeting in Beijing earlier this week that it had nuclear weapons and that it had reprocessed into weapons fuel almost 8,000 nuclear fuel rods.
American intelligence agencies have said the North has enough plutonium for one or two weapons or has built one or two weapons, but they do not believe it has done substantial reprocessing.