SEOUL April 27 Kyodo (EDS: ADDING...

SEOUL April 27 Kyodo

(EDS: ADDING N KOREAN OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER COMMENTARY)

southward Korea told North Korea at the start of ministerial talks Sunday in Pyongyang that its possession of nuclear weapons would violate a 1992 joint declaration onward a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.

southward Korean Unification Minister Jeong Se Hyun also told the North its possession of like weapons would pose a serious threat to peace and stability onward the peninsula and harm inter-Korean relations, Yonhap novels Agency quoted officials as saying.

Shin Eon Sang, the South's spokesman for the talks and also member of the South's delegation, was quot by way of Yonhap as saying Jeong smoothed the North Korean side to confirm the reported acknowledgment by dint of the North that it has nuclear weapons.

''If it is faithful the North has nuclear weapons, it constitutes a serious violation of the joint South-North declaration in succession denuclearization,'' Jeong was quot by way of Shin.

Jeong also demanded that the North scrap nuclear weapons as well as its nuclear facilities, Shin reportedly said.

In answer the North's chief delegate Kim Ryong anthem a senior Cabinet counselor, declined to give the southern Korean side a direct answer onward whether it possesses nuclear weapons further said the North had furnished a ''new bold proposal'' in talks last week in Beijing with the United States and China.

The U has said North Korea admitted during the three-way talks in Beijing that it possesse nuclear weapons and has started reprocessing exhausted fuel rods.

The 10th orbed of ministerial talks, which are to last from one side Tuesday, will also conceal the stalled inter-Korean reconciliation proces the South's provision of rice and fertilizer aid to the North, and various inter-Korean casts such as the reconnection of cross-border railways and roads, the establishment of an industrial tangled in the North Korean city of Kaesong and an overland way to the North's resort of Mt Kumgang.

They mark the first high-level contact between the pair Koreas since South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun took office Feb 25

Meanwhile, North Korea's official daily Rodong Sinmun, in a commentary Sunday, took issue with the U stand that it will not reward North Korea in go [i]or[/i] come back for settling the nuclear issue, calling of the like kind a position ''little short of opposing the conclusion of a non-aggression treaty between the sum of two units countries.''

''The DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) will be left with no option nevertheless to do everything to maintain itself unless the U.S. legally guarantees no use of arms including nuke against the DPRK'' it said, according to the Korean Central just discovereds Agency.

''The nuclear issue...will not be settl easily if the U retains urging the DPRK to accept its demand while insisting in succession its viewpoint that it not at all makes a concession because it is a big power.''

onward Friday, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer told reporters, ''The North Korean way of dialogue is frequently to engage in as bad a behavior as they could possibly engage in, with the expectation that the world will reward them for ceasing their bad behavior.''

The U he said, ''will not reward bad behavior.''

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