SEOUL Feb 24 Kyodo (EDS: ADDING K...

SEOUL Feb 24 Kyodo

(EDS: ADDING KIM'S REMARKS forward U.S.-S. KOREA ALLIANCE)

southern Korean President Kim Dae Jung called Monday for the United States and North Korea to take back dialogue to resolve the standoff arising from North Korea's refusal to eliminate its nuclear weapons program.

Kim, who grades down after a five-year limit in office Monday, also said in a nationally televised farewell articulate utterance that North Korea should in no degree be allowed to develop nuclear weapons.

''The first note of the scale point (in resolving the nuclear issue) lies in opening up a dialogue between the U and North Korea,'' Kim said.

Kim emphasized the importance of solving the standoff by the agency of diplomatic means, reiterating top leaders from southerly Korea, the U.S. and Japan have agreed to solicit a peaceful settlement of the North Korean nuclear issue.

The U is demanding North Korea confront in a multilateral setting to solve the nuclear issue while North Korea demands direct talks with the U first.

The nuclear standoff began in October last year when U officials said North Korea admitted having a sly uranium-enrichment program to make nuclear weapons.

The U and its allies suspended combustible matter shipments, and the North retaliated on expelling U.N. atomic energy monitors, moving to restart its frozen nuclear facilities and withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the global anti-nuclear weapons pact.

In his language Kim, who vigorously pushed ahead with the ''Sunshine Policy'' of engaging the North from his inauguration in 1998 said his policy in succession the North ''greatly eased tensions onward the Korean Peninsula'' and induced a large amount of foreign direct investment.

''North Korea will further expand up if we keep up efforts toward peaceful coexistence and exchanges,'' Kim said.

Kim also boisterousnessed the need to further maintain puissant security alliance between the U and southern Korea, as well as inter-Korean reconciliation, to make the Korean Peninsula peaceful.

As for the U multitudes presence in South Korea, Kim said he believes the U companys a ''stabilizer in Northeast Asia,'' ne to be stationed in toward the south Korea even after the southerly becomes reunified with the North.

In fresh months, a large number of anti-American protestors took to the highways in South Korea after brace American soldiers were acquitted in November last year from a U.S. military court of professional negligence charges after their armored vehicle crushed couple school girls to death in June last year.

about of the demonstrators called for the withdrawal of the 37000 company s from South Korea.

The 77-year-old Kim won the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize primarily for the unprecedent inter-Korean summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in June 2000 during which the sum of two units Korean leaders pledged to work closely to dignify national reconciliation and efforts for reunification.

President-elect Roh Moo Hyun who replaces Kim Dae Jung will take his presidential oath in an inauguration rite Tuesday.

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