North Korea ready to scrap missiles:

government official

SEOUL, Monday (AFP) North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il told a visiting South Korean envoy last week he would scrap his missiles once diplomatic ties were established with Washington, a senior government official said Monday.

Unification Minister Chung Dong-Young, who met Kim in Pyongyang on Friday, told a cabinet meeting Monday that Kim offered to dismantle his entire arsenal of short- and long-range missiles, the official said.

"The precondition is that if relations are normalized and become friendly, then at that stage North Korea is willing to dismantle its missiles," said Kim Chang-Ho, the information minister, who attended the cabinet meeting. He quoted Chung as saying that the North Korean leader was ready to destroy all its missiles from short-range to long-range ones. Washington has denounced Pyongyang as a leading global proliferator of missiles and missile technology. The cash-strapped communist state has refused to stop missile exports, a major source of hard currency earnings.

North Korea has short-range Scud missiles targeting South Korea and intermediate-range Rodong missiles that can hit targets up to 1,300 kilometres (812 miles) away including most parts of Japan. Pyongyang stunned the world in 1998 by test-launching over Japan a Taepodong-1 missile with a range of up to 2,000 kilometers.

During the talks in Pyongyang, the North Korean leader also said his country could return to stalled nuclear disarmament talks as early as July should Washington "acknowledge and respect" it as a dialogue partner.