North Korea wants a nuclear-free peninsula
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-06-22 13:44

North Korea's ultimate goal is a nuclear-free Korean peninsula and it would have no use for nuclear weapons if the United States were friendly, Pyongyang's top delegate to inter-Korean talks said.

"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," North Korean chief delegate Kwon Ho-Ung was quoted as saying during the talks.

Kwon Ho Ung, center left, a North Korean senior cabinet counselor and the head of the North Korean delegation, shakes hands with South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young at their high-level talks in Seoul Wednesday, June 22, 2005. [AP]

"If the US becomes amicable towards North Korea, we will have no reason to have a single nuclear weapon," he was quoted as saying by South Korean spokesman Kim Chun-Shick.

North Korea's founding father Kim Il-Sung died in 1994, two years after an inter-Korean accord on the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula came into effect.

Kwon was speaking at the first cabinet-level inter-Korean talks in more than a year taking place in Seoul until Friday.

South (R) and North Korean delegations hold the inter-Korean ministerial talks in Seoul June 22, 2005. [Reuters]

The talks are focussing on inter-Korean exchanges but South Korean chief delegate Chung Dong-Young, the unification minister, insisted that the talks should address the nuclear standoff.

"The North Korean nuclear issue is an international one as well as an inter-Korean one," Chung was quoted as saying by the South Korean spokesman.

"We have to discuss and try to resolve this issue through these ministerial level talks."

In the past North Korea has dodged the nuclear question at inter-Korean talks, insisting the standoff had nothing to do with bilateral relations.

Chung met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il in Pyongyang last week.

Kim said North Korea could return to stalled nuclear disarmament talks as early as July should the United States "acknowledge and respect" Pyongyang as a dialogue partner.

He also referred to Kim Il-Sung's desire for a denuclearized peninsula and said the country would rejoin the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and open up to international inspectors once the nuclear standoff was resolved.

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