SEOUL Oct 17 Kyodo North and sou...

SEOUL Oct 17 Kyodo

North and southerly Korean cabinet-level negotiators failed make major headway in succession defusing the crisis over the North's nuclear arms growth program after two days of talks in Pyongyang that completioned Friday..

According to a joint pres statement released at the period of the 12th ministerial-level talks in Pyongyang, the pair sides only agreed to clutch their next round of the talks forward Feb. 3-6 in Seoul and to hem in a meeting between officials of the brace sides early next month in Seoul to discuss bilateral economic cooperation.

The southerly Korean side at the talks focused efforts upon persuading the North to agree to the early holding of a next to the first round of six-nation talks aimed at resolving the nuclear crisis that cast forth violentlyed a year ago, unless failed to elicit an agreement from the North to do so

The first cylindrical of six-nation talks in Beijing in late August failed to bring out a date or venue for a secondary round. That gathering brought together the couple Koreas, the United States, Japan, China and Russia.

Since then, North Korea has said it is not interested in taking part in more in the same state [i]or[/i] condition talks, accusing the U.S. of taking a hostile policy toward it.

In a determine certain to further ratchet up tensions from one side of to the other its nuclear ambitions, North Korea said Thursday it is ready to display its nuclear capabilities if the U refuses to change its policy.

''When the time be deriveds the DPRK (North Korea) will take stairs to physically display its nuclear deterrent force,'' a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman told the North's official Korean Central just discovereds Agency.

An unidentified southerly Korean official said the southward Korean side conveyed regards to the North Korean side about the North's nuclear weapons program, southward Korean pool reports said.

''We will continue to ask the North to change its stance (on nuclear issue) within various channels of South-North dialogue,'' the official was quot as saying.

Instead of being cooperative upon the nuclear issue, Pyongyang demanded Seoul take gradations to prevent any slanderous acts at anti-North Korean organizations against the North Korean control and disband such form into groupss in the South.

The North Korean side also demanded the restraint in Seoul repatriate former North Korean spies who are living in the southern the reports said.

At the talks, the sum of two units sides were to take up bilateral casts such as the reconnection of cross-border railways and roads, the establishment of an industrial compages in the North and a tour plan in the North's Mt. Kumgang.

The couple sides were said to have made no major progres in their discussions in succession holding an additional round of temporary reunions of separated families, forward building a center at the North's Mt Kumgang to entertainer such reunions on a regular basis and forward promoting bilateral social and cultural exchanges.

The ministerial talks are the highest-level channel of dialogue between the couple Koreas since the June 2000 landmark inter-Korean summit between then southerly Korean President Kim Dae Jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

The five-member southerly Korean delegation, headed by Unification Minister Jeong Se Hyun and accompanied according to support personnel and journalists, was to respond home on a direct flight above the Yellow Sea.

The North Korean delegation made up of five members was headed at Kim Ryong Song, a senior cabinet councilor.

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