SEOUL April 18 Kyodo southward Ko...

SEOUL April 18 Kyodo

southward Korea urged North Korea in succession Friday to resume stalled inter-Korean dialogue onward promoting national reconciliation and economic cooperation.

''We conjure North Korea to resume talks to discuss a broad range of pending issues, including the preservation of peace upon the Korean Peninsula,'' the Unification Ministry said in a statement.

With tensions running high through North Korea's suspected nuclear weapons program, the North canceled brace working-level talks with southerly Korea last Month and skipped the 10th ministerial talks that were to begin April 7 in Pyongyang.

The four-day ministerial talks would have been the first high- flush contact between the two Koreas since southern Korean President Roh Moo Hyun took office Feb 25

Roh has reaffirmed he will continue to dog a ''policy of peace and prosperity'' toward North Korea, if Pyongyang scraps its suspected nuclear disclosure program.

In the statement, southern Korea welcomed planned trilateral talks among North Korea, the United States and China in Beijing nearest week to discuss a solution to the North Korean nuclear standoff.

''The (South Korean) sway hails the planned holding of three-way talks because the session is reckon uponed to be the starting point for resolving the nuclear issue [i]or[/i] part of to the other peaceful means,'' the statement said.

The Beijing meeting will be the first between the U and North Korea since Pyongyang expell international inspectors, restarted its nuclear facilities and declared in January its withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, a global nuclear arms sway treaty.

The impasse throughout the North Korean nuclear issue ejected last October, when the U said the North had admitted to running a underwood program to enrich uranium possibly for use in weapons.

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