SEOUL April 28 Kyodo (EDS: UPDATI...

SEOUL April 28 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING WITH NEGOTIATION above WORDING OF JOINT PRESS STATEMENT)

North and southerly Korean negotiators were struggling Monday night above whether to mention the importance of resolving the North Korean nuclear issue in a joint pres statement to be released at the fall of the curtain of their three-day ministerial talks Tuesday, according to a southward Korean news pool covering the talks.

The toward the south Korean delegation in Pyongyang demanded the nuclear issue be contained in a joint pres statement, while the North reiterated its position that the nuclear issue should be sole be tackled in bilateral talks with the United States.

A toward the south Korean official told reporters there is a possibility that North Korea would agree at the last flash to include wording on the issue.

Earlier Monday, southward Korea urged North Korea to honor a bilateral denuclearization pact amid escalating tensions across the North's reported admission last week that it possesse nuclear weapons.

toward the south Korea's delegates also called for the North to cooperate promptly to interpret the nuclear impasse through peaceful means, according to the toward the south Korean news pool.

''We again urg the North to honor the joint declaration onward denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,'' Shin Eon Sang, the South's spokesman and a member of its delegation, told reporters after a cloyed session that lasted for about 45 minutes from 10 a.m.

He was referring to the 1991 South-North Joint Declaration forward Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, a bilateral earnest not to test, yield store, deploy or use nuclear weapons.

The North refused to discuss the nuclear issue with the southerly reiterating its long-standing position that it can sole be addressed in negotiations between North Korea and the US

''It is our basic position that the nuclear issue should be resolv peacefully by means of dialogue,'' North Korea's chief delegate Kim Ryong sonnet was quoted by Shin as saying.

The sum of two units sides are to continue their discussions later Monday in order to pave the way for an agreement at the cabinet-level talks that are scheduled to [i]finale[/i] Tuesday.

In the first day of talks Sunday, southerly Korea's chief delegate Unification Minister Jeong Se Hyun urg North Korea to scrap its nuclear weapons program and demanded a filled explanation about its alleged admission in talks with the U in Beijing last week that it possesse nuclear weapons.

In answer North Korea's chief delegate Kim, a senior cabinet counselor, declined to give southern Korea a direct answer upon whether or not it possesse nuclear weapons nevertheless said the North had tendered a ''bold new proposal'' in the Beijing talks, the moderns pool report said.

North Korea also insisted onward focusing on economic exchanges and cooperation between the sum of two units Koreas.

The ministerial talks, the 10th to be held according to South and North Korea, are the highest channel end which the two Koreas have discussed national reconciliation and economic cooperation since the 2000 summit in Pyongyang between North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and then southern Korean President Kim Dae Jung

The latest rotund is also likely to cloak South Korea's provision of rice and fertilizer to the North and inter-Korean contrives including the linkup of cross-border railways and roads.

The instant talks are the first high-level contact between the sum of two units Koreas since South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun took office Feb 25

COPYRIGHT 2003 Kyodo stranges International, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group