North Korea Holds Out For U.S. Talks

North Korean negotiators said the dispute over their country's nuclear activity can only be solved through dialogue with the United States, a South Korean envoy said Wednesday after returning from Pyongyang.

Meanwhile, the opening of the two Koreas' first cross-border railway in half a century reportedly will take place next month, and Japan was investigating allegations Wednesday that a North Korean ferry boat has been used by communist spies since the 1990s.

The envoy, Lim Dong-won, had hoped to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il to try to personally dissuade him from pursuing nuclear weapons development. But the meeting did not take place and North Korean officials said Kim was not in the capital at the time of Lim's visit.

"North Korean officials repeated that the nuclear issue is a matter that concerns North Korea and the United States," said Lim, who delivered a letter from South Korean President Kim Dae-jung to the North Korean leader through aides.

Communicating through aides, Kim Jong Il thanked his South Korean counterpart for the letter and promised to study its "warm advice," Lim told a nationally televised news conference.

Lim ruled out any quick solution to the North's nuclear dispute, saying that it will be "a very long and gradual process."

"The fundamental solution of the nuclear issue can be achieved only when the country suspected of building nuclear weapons doesn't feel any security threats and builds relationships of trust with other countries," he said.

"There can't be 100 percent verification of a nuclear weapons program," Lim said, speaking in general of the difficulty of confirming that a nation is not secretly developing atomic arms.

While calling for talks with Washington, North Korea said Wednesday that the United States was trying to stifle it through economic and political pressure in the same way that a snake smothers and consumes its victim.

Lim also said the two sides plan to open their border early next month for South Korean tourists traveling to the North's Diamond Mountain resort.

South Korea hopes the rail line will eventually be linked up to the trans-Siberian railway allowing South Korean goods better access to Russian and European markets. The cross-border railway is also aimed at encouraging economic exchange between the two Koreas.

The neighbors also agreed to open a road on their eastern border early next month to allow Hyundai, a South Korean conglomerate, to take tourists to the North's Diamond Mountain.

If completed, the links will be the first across the heavily armed Demilitarized Zone separating the two countries — who remain technically at war. The last train crossed the border shortly before the 1950-53 Korean War.

The North Korean ferry, the only ship making regular trips between North Korea and Japan, allegedly carried messages to a Japan-based Pyongyang agent who organized espionage against rival South Korea, said a spokesman for Japan's Public Security Investigation Agency.

Police raided the suspected spy's Tokyo home last month seeking evidence, but did not arrest the 72-year-old man, the spokesman said on condition of anonymity.

The man allegedly recruited spies — including members of Seoul's military — to operate in South Korea. His name was not released.

The agency spokesman said that the ferry and several people were being investigated in connection with an alleged spy ring that began in 1993.

Documents seized from the man's home indicated he also tried to win collaborators from among U.S. military personnel stationed in South Korea, the Mainichi newspaper said in its Wednesday evening editions.

That scheme failed, but the alleged spy succeeded in getting more than one South Korean civilian to cooperate with his efforts, the Mainichi said, quoting unidentified police sources.

In a commentary on its news agency, KCNA, North Korea charged that Washington was using the dispute over North Korea's nuclear activities as a pretext to destroy the communist country.

"This strategy is also dubbed a 'serpent' strategy as it is to be carried out in the way a serpent does i.e. swallowing up the object after strangling it," KCNA said.

In a separate report, KCNA also quoted two North Korean newspapers — Rodong Sinmun and Minju Joson- as claiming that the United States keeps 1,000 nuclear weapons in South Korea and demanding their withdrawal.

There have been no such reports in recent years. Washington traditionally maintains a "neither-confirm-nor-deny" policy about movement of its nuclear weapons.

North Korea is demanding a nonaggression treaty with the United States before it gives up its nuclear ambitions. Washington has ruled out a formal treaty but said it can provide a written security guarantee. Washington wants to bring the North's nuclear issue before the U.N. Security Council, which could eventually impose sanctions on Pyongyang.

In meetings with Lim, Kim Yong Sun, a key aide to the North Korean leader, reiterated Pyongyang's stance that the nuclear issue is entirely with the United States, the North's KCNA news agency reported.

"It is the only way of most fairly solving the `nuclear issue' on the Korean Peninsula for the DPRK and the U.S. to have direct talks on an equal footing," the report said. DPRK stands for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

South Korean officials said its delegation achieved "some degree of success" after conveying its anti-nuclear position clearly to North Korea while hearing the North's response. The delegation also met Kim Yong Nam, the North's ceremonial head of state and No. 2.

The dispute was sparked in October when U.S. officials said North Korea had admitted having a nuclear program based on uranium enrichment in violation of a 1994 agreement with the United States. Washington and its allies suspended oil shipments to North Korea, which then expelled U.N. nuclear inspectors and pulled out of a global nuclear arms control treaty.

The envoy's visit — coming after a round of North-South Cabinet-level talks last week in Seoul — was part of South Korea's efforts to seek a negotiated end to the North's suspected nuclear weapons development.