North Says U.S. Is The Problem

In an apparent swipe at the United States, a North Korean delegation arriving for talks in South Korea said Tuesday that the two sides should resist "outside pressure" amid concerns over the North's nuclear weapons development.

The four-day talks are supposed to promote North-South projects such as a planned cross-border railway, but the South Korean government has pledged to use them to urge its neighbor to give up its nuclear programs.

The North, however, has argued that the dispute is with Washington and does not involve the South. Comments by Kim Ryong Song, the head of the 29-member delegation, and a statement issued by the delegation suggested negotiators would stick to that stand.

"However strong outside pressure is and however severe the outside situation is, we all should join forces and unite ourselves with a fervent sense of national respect and move forward through the difficulties lying ahead," the statement said, according to a text carried by the South's Yonhap news agency.

The comments suggested that the North would resist the South's attempt to position itself as a central player in the brokering of a peaceful solution to Pyongyang's standoff with Washington.

The Cabinet-level talks, along with three other sets of inter-Korean meetings this week, continue contacts that began with the North-South summit in June 2000. They are the highest-level regular contacts between the two countries.

The North's state-run media kept up its barrage of criticism of the United States. A commentary in Rodong Sinmun newspaper on Tuesday called for a non-aggression pact with Washington and was blunt in its condemnation of any attempt to involve other countries.

"The nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula is one to be settled between the DPRK and the U.S.," said the commentary, carried by the North's KCNA news agency. "Accordingly, there is no need for other countries to meddle in it."

Tensions escalated on the peninsula in October when the United States said North Korea had admitted having a secret nuclear weapons program that used uranium. The United States and its allies suspended oil shipments to the North, and Pyongyang responded by expelling U.N. inspectors and preparing to reactivate facilities from an older nuclear program, one based on plutonium.

While denying that it seeks to produce weapons, North Korea justifies its bold moves by noting that the Bush administration suspended Clinton-era contacts when it took office, accelerated a missile defense system chiefly aimed at stopping North Korea's arsenal, and lumped the North in with Iran and Iraq in the "axis of evil" speech.

South Korean President-elect Roh Moo-hyun, who takes office next month, has said he would be willing to meet the Northern delegation if they wanted to do so.

Kim Ryong Song, the Northern negotiator, said such a meeting was possible, but he did not make a public request for one.

"If he wants to meet us and if there is time for us to do so, aside from talks, we can meet him," Kim said at the airport. "The case is the same with (South Korean) President Kim Dae-jung."

A top U.S. official was also in Seoul on Tuesday to make the American case for putting the nuclear row before the U.N. Security Council.

U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton, who handles arms control and international security, said at the same airport Tuesday morning as he arrived from Beijing that getting the United Nations involved is "certainly what we're aiming to do."

He did not say what action the United States would like the Security Council to take. U.S. officials, who earlier considered economic penalties against North Korea, have said they would consider economic aid for North Korea if and when it drops its nuclear development.

The diplomatic efforts to avert an escalation got a potential boost Monday, when North Korean leader Kim Jong Il met for a reported six hours in Pyongyang with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov.

Losyukov, who went to North Korea to push a Russian proposal to end the impasse, said on Tuesday in Beijing that the talks were productive.

Moscow's three-part plan reportedly envisions nuclear-free status for the Korean Peninsula, written security guarantees and a humanitarian and economic aid package for the impoverished North. Russian officials have not provided details.

North Korea faces a dire economic situation. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Program, estimates that some 13.2 of North Korea's 23.2 million people are malnourished.

According to a State Department report issued in May 2002, the United States has donated more than $500 million in aid to North Korea since 1995. The aid has average 350,00 metric tons a year, although that dropped in 2002 to 155,000 metric tons because of aid needs in Afghanistan.