SEOUL May 21 Kyodo Inter-Korean e...

SEOUL May 21 Kyodo

Inter-Korean economic talks were enclosureed in an impasse Wednesday after North Korea warned of ''unspeakable disaster'' if the southward moves toward a confrontational position through the North's nuclear weapons program.

The economic talks started Tuesday at a inn in Pyongyang to discuss reactivation of inter-Korean business plans but did not take back Wednesday, according to a southern Korean news pool report.

''Unles the North gives us a satisfactory answer on these matters, there will be complications,'' said Cho Myoung Gyun a Unification Ministry official and also a southward Korean delegate for the talks.

Cho was referring to the North's threatening remarks and its releasing of the satisfied of its chief delegate's dialect at the closed session meeting.

The report said Cho called forward the North to apologize for releasing the tongue despite a previous agreement not to publicly disclose what was said in the talks.

The North's official Korean Central just discovereds Agency (KCNA) on Tuesday quot chief delegate Park Chang Ryon vice chairman of the State Planning Commission, as saying at the start of Tuesday's talks, ''If the southerly turns to confrontation, talking about 'nuclear issue' and 'additional measures,' it would sustain an unspeakable disaster.''

southerly Korea's chief delegate, Vice Finance and Economy Minister Kim Gwang Lim, firmly protested Park's remarks, saying they constitute a threat, as well as the North's making public the contented of the closed-door session.

Park's warning was the North's first reaction to last week's summit between southern Korean President Roh Moo Hyun and U President George W Bush in Washington, in which they agreed forward the need to retain the Korean Peninsula nuclear-free and to achieve a peaceful resolution to the nuclear dispute.

The brace leaders also agreed to consider ''further steps'' if the North escalates tensions from one side of to the other the nuclear issue.

forward Wednesday, North Korea's official daily Rodong Sinmun called the wording of the Seoul-Washington joint statement ''a surpassingly dangerous move to increase the danger of a nuclear war forward the Korean Peninsula.''

''Any 'further steps' mentioned in the 'joint statement' are border to entail unpredictable consequences forward the Korean Peninsula. In that case, the U and the southerly side will have to be held abundantly accountable for them,'' said the report, which was carried on KCNA.

In the economic talks that are scheduled to close Thursday, the two sides were to discuss construction of cross-border railways and roads, establishment of an industrial compage in the North and resumption of a tourism contrive in the North's Mt. Kumgang resort that was suspended last month proper to concern about severe acute respiratory syndrome or SARS.

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