SEOUL Jan. 3 Kyodo (EDS: UPDATING...

SEOUL Jan. 3 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING KIM DAE JUNG ROH solicit in love HYUN MEETING, 2ND PARA, southern KOREA REPORTEDLY TO SEND plenipotentiary TO NORTH, 5TH PARA)

southern Korea is considering proposing the United States give North Korea a written assurance guaranteeing the sovereignty of the North if Pyongyang gives up nuclear progressive growth first, Yonhap News Agency reported Friday.

Meanwhile, President Kim Dae Jung and President-elect Roh Moo Hyun reaffirmed during a meeting at the cerulean House presidential office forward Friday that the North Korea nuclear issue should be resolv peacefully end diplomatic efforts.

Yonhap quot a southward Korean government source as saying Seoul plans to make the proposal when representatives from southerly Korea, the U.S. and Japan fit in Washington on Monday for a trilateral meeting in succession policy toward North Korea.

''We believe that there will be ways to guarantee the North's sovereignty on a level if it does not necessarily take the form of a treaty,'' a direction official said. ''In the first place, however, the North should declare that it would scrap its highly enriched uranium program.''

the Hankook Ilbo daily said in its early Saturday edition that southerly Korea plans to send a special minister to North Korea to brief Pyongyang in succession the South Korean proposal.

North Korea has said it is ready to address disturbs over its nuclear weapons program if the U guarantees its sovereignty in a legally binding manner, of the like kind through conclusion of a nonaggression treaty.

Washington has said it would not record into negotiations on such a treaty unles Pyongyang first gives up its nuclear unfolding It has also glance ated North Korea's concept of a nonaggression pact is linked to its desire to achieve U.S. troops out of southern Korea.

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