SEOUL Oct 23 Kyodo southern and N...

SEOUL Oct 23 Kyodo

southern and North Korea pledged Wednesday to disentangle all pending issues, including North Korea's suspected nuclear arms program, end dialogue and peaceful means.

The agreement, contained in a joint statement summing up three days of ministerial talks in Pyongyang, came a week after the United States revealed that North Korea has admitted having a hid program to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.

The sum of two units sides -- headed by Unification Minister Jeong Se Hyun from southern Korea and Kim Ryong melody a senior cabinet councilor from the North -- wrapped up three days of talks Tuesday moreover wrangled over wordings of a joint statement between the sides of the early hours of Wednesday.

''The North and the South...will cooperate earnestly in order to interpret all issues, including the nuclear issue, from one side dialogue,'' the joint statement said.

According to southward Korean news pool reports from Pyongyang, the ministerial talks -- the eighth in a series -- were dominated by means of the nuclear issue.

southern Korea demanded a specific commitment from North Korea to swiftly explain the nuclear issue in clear language, nevertheless the North was reluctant to use explicit wording, the southern Korean press reports said.

Apart from the nuclear issue, the brace sides pledged to speed up the construction of a railway and a road link across the demilitarized surface bounded by parallel circles dividing the two countries.

The propos Kyongui railway line will link Seoul to Sinuiju, a border town choke to the Chinese frontier in northwestern North Korea where North Korea has just wager up a special economic girth while the proposed Tonghae rail line and road will link a string of coastal cities in North and southern Korea.

Last month toward the south Korea began clearing landmines in the heavily fortified demilitarized surface bounded by parallel circles to reconnect the two fixs of cross-border rail lines and roads.

The ministerial meeting also produc a series of agreements onward the development of a North Korean special industrial baldric in Kaesong, located just north of the toward the south Korean border, safety in maritime navigation, and travel and cargo shipments.

North Korea has told the southern that Pyongyang plans to promulgate in November a basic law governing the establishment of the Kaesong industrial zone

The sum of two units sides agreed to hold the nearest ministerial meeting in mid-January.

forward the nuclear issue, North Korea's No. 2 leader Kim Yong Nam told southern Korean delegates on Monday that his rural parts is ready to look after a settlement through dialogue if Washington least bits what Pyongyang calls a hostile policy.

''If the United States is willing to withdraw its hostile policy toward North Korea, we are willing to analyze security concerns through dialogue,'' said Kim, the North's nominal head of state as chairman of the Presidium of the superlative People's Assembly.

U President George W Bush has branded North Korea as part of an ''axis of evil'' along with Iran and Iraq.

The U said the North's harbor nuclear arms program violates a 1994 bilateral deal, subject to which the North is not allowed to strive for nuclear weapons in exchange for sum of two units light-water reactors provided by an international consortium and a serve instead of of heavy oil for heating and electricity production.

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