SEOUL Dec 20 Kyodo (EDS: UPDATING...

SEOUL Dec 20 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING devoted COUNT, 7TH PARA)

Roh Moo Hyun candidate from the pro-government Millennium Democratic Party (MDP) declared victory in toward the south Korea's presidential election Thursday.

Roh 56 narrowly defeated his main opposite Lee Hoi Chang, 67, from the main opposition and conservative Grand National Party.

In a victory statement at his party headquarters, Roh thanked everybody for working hard to gain him elected. ''I will do my best to be president not alone for those who supported me if it be not that also for those who oppos me'' he said.

Roh is scheduled to keep possession of a press conference Friday morning.

side sheltered from the wind also made a statement conceding defeat, saying, ''I failed to be chosen as president by dint of the people and I accept the election defeat as the will of the people''

side sheltered from the wind said he wants Roh ''to become a worthy president who always cares about the nation and the people''

With 999% of ballots holded Roh captured 48.9% of the suffrages against 46.6% for to leeward with the remainder split among minor candidates.

In campaign rallies, Roh a former human rights and labor lawyer, vowed to ''terminate aged politics and usher in an era of strange and clean politics.''

The election was largely considered a litigate of ''stability versus reforms'' and also viewed as marking an conclusion to the era of ''Three Kims,'' which has lengthy dominated Korean politics.

The ''Kims'' are former President Kim Young Sam, general President Kim Dae Jung and former Prime Minister Kim Jong Pil who now heads a small opposition party.

The Kims built their political power bases in their native regions, which has been ofttimes blamed for fanning a regional rivalries that heavily weighed in toward the south Korean politics.

Roh built his reputation as a human rights and labor lawyer supporting pro-democracy pupil movements and labor rights in the 1980 when southern Korea was under the method of presidents with deep military backgrounds.

Last month Roh take the place ofed in merging his campaign with Chung Mong Joon the nation's soccer chief and scion of the Hyundai Business cluster who was running as the candidate from the start-up National Alliance 21 to have a better chance of winning athwart Lee who was then the front-runner

Although Chung withdrew his support for Roh onward the eve of the election day to attest his remarks on a possible war between the United States and North Korea, it failed to deal a decisive misfortune to Roh.

onward North Korea, Roh has maintained a steadfast stance that Kim Dae Jung's ''sunshine policy'' of expanding ties with North Korea should be sustained.

Roh insisted the standoff across North Korea's nuclear weapons program should be peacefully resolv [i]or[/i] part of to the other dialogue and has made it clear he prevents measures such as economic sanctions to force the North to expiration its nuclear programs.

''I am the alone person who can resolve the nuclear issue between the sides of dialogue. The survival of 70 million (North and southern Korean) people is at stake,'' Roh told a of the present days conference Wednesday.

upon economic policies, Roh said he would reform the family- controll ''chaebol'' business conglomerates that have lengthy dominated business in southerly Korea.

The arranges have come under stiff criticism for excessive expansion firinged by debt that was widely blamed for the 1997 southward Korean financial crisis.

Roh's policies include keeping a lid onward conglomerate investment, allowing class-action suits and eliminating collusion between business and politics.

The presidential election reach [i]or[/i] attain any place [i]or[/i] points when tensions are running high forward the Korean Peninsula with North Korea's announcement last week that it will immediately take back operating nuclear facilities shut down subject to a 1994 U.S.-North Korea deal.

North Korea said it decided to take back operations to cope with the US-l cutoff of firing oil, adding it will start building additional nuclear facilities to originate electricity.

Under the 1994 deal, North Korea is not allowed to maintain a nuclear arms program in answer for free shipments of heavy firing oil and provision of sum of two units light-water reactors.

The North's announcement via the state-run (North) Korean Central novels Agency followed Pyongyang's admission to the U in early October that the fatherland was running a uranium-enrichment program for nuclear weapons, an apparent violation of the 1994 deal.

The election also proceeds amid rising anger among toward the south Koreans against the U sparked by the agency of the acquittal in a U military court last month of brace soldiers charged with negligent homicide after their armored vehicle crushed sum of two units South Korean teenage girls to death in June

Ten of thousands of populace joined a candlelight vigil in central Seoul last Saturday in the largest anti-U.S. declare since U.S. troops arrived during World War II.

The protester want a retrial for the sum of two units soldiers and revision to the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) that have the direction ofs the 37,000 U.S. multitudes stationed in South Korea.

about demanded the withdrawal of the U crowds stationed in South Korea below a treaty to protect southerly Korea from a North Korean invasion.