SOUTH KOREA: South Korea said yesterday that North Korea had offered to hold high-level talks later this month, as the United States admitted verbal assurances that it has no plans to attack Pyongyang may not be enough to end the nuclear crisis.
The North's offer of four-day talks from January 21st came in response to a South Korean proposal for a cabinet-level meeting to discuss inter-Korean rapprochement and the nuclear issue.
"In accordance with time-old practices, it is highly likely that South Korea will accept the new date proposed by Pyongyang," a South Korean unification ministry official said.
Unification Minister Mr Jeong Se-Hyun said last week that South Korea would urge the North to scrap its nuclear weapons programme.
The announcement came after an envoy for South Korean President Mr Kim Dae-Jung said he had received backing for mediation attempts after meeting US Defence Secretary Mr Donald Rumsfeld in Washington.
US Secretary of State Mr Colin Powell also acknowledged that Washington might have to go beyond its previous verbal assurances that it had no plans to attack North Korea.
"We have made it clear we have no aggressive intent," Mr Powell told the Washington Post. "Apparently, they want something more than a passing statement." Asked whether there was a formula that offered more than President Bush's repeated statements that the US would not invade, Mr Powell replied: "You've just bounded a problem. That's what diplomacy is about."
Yesterday, Mr Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog agency, said he was going to Washington to consult US officials on the crises in North Korea and Iraq.
"I will meet SecretaryPowell and (White House national security adviser) Dr (Condoleezza) Rice. I will meet with them tomorrow morning," Mr ElBaradei, director-general of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, said.
President Kim's national security adviser, Mr Yim Sung-Joon, said he conveyed South Korea's plans to take the initiative to resolve the standoff in talks with Mr Rumsfeld and Dr Rice on Wednesday.
"The United States expressed its support and understanding to this proposal," Mr Yim was quoted as saying in Washington.
Mr Kim steps down on February 25 when he will be replaced by his political "soulmate" Mr Roh Moo-Hyun.
Mr Roh's Millennium Democratic Party (MDP) urged Pyongyang yesterday to accept a US offer of talks.
"North Korea should immediately declare dismantling of its nuclear weapons programme and respond to the US proposition to talks for the purpose of stabilising peace on the Korean Peninsula and co-existence and co-prosperity," MDP spokesman Moon Seok-Ho said.