N.Korea wants a nuclear-free peninsula

SEOUL, Wednesday (AFP) North Korea's ultimate goal is a nuclear-free Korean peninsula, Pyongyang's top delegate said at inter-Korean talks here Wednesday. "The denuclearization of the Korean peninsula was the last will of (the late North Korean) president Kim Il-Sung and that's our ultimate goal," chief delegate Kwon Ho-Ung was quoted as saying during the talks.

"If the US becomes amicable towards North Korea, we will have no reason to have a single nuclear weapon."

Earlier South Korea urged North Korea to return to six-party negotiations on the communist country's nuclear programme in July, a South Korean official said.

South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young also told the North Korean delegation at the talks in Seoul that the nuclear crisis could and should also be discussed and solved between the two Koreas, ministry official Kim Chun-shick told reporters.

"Our top delegate stressed that the nuclear problem is both an international issue and a national issue," said the official. "He stressed that the issue must be discussed and resolved at ministerial talks."

North Korea typically does not like to discuss the nuclear crisis with South Korea because it sees the United States as its main interlocutor on the subject.

But when North and South Korea began their 15th round of ministerial talks on Wednesday on improving ties after a year of deadlock, the main focus for many was on whether Seoul could put more pressure on Pyongyang to return to the nuclear table.

Meanwhile a top Chinese Communist Party official who met North Korean leader Kim Jong-il earlier this year said on Wednesday he believes Pyongyang is still interested in resolving the nuclear standoff through dialogue.

Six-party talks were the only "relatively good way" to solve the problem and a new round in July was possible, Wang Jiarui, head of the party's International Liaison Department, told Reuters in an interview.

But even if the talks, that have joined the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia, resumed, there was no guarantee the problem could be "throroughly resolved", said Wang, adding that patience would be needed.