SEOUL Feb 4 Kyodo (EDS: UPDATING ...

SEOUL Feb 4 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING WITH articulate utterance BY S. KOREA'S CHIEF DELEGATE)

North Korea's chief delegate to inter-Korean ministerial talks that formally began Wednesday in Seoul urg the United States to propound compensation in return for the North's freezing its nuclear increase program.

''We (North Korea) want the U to take compensatory gradations corresponding to our freezing (of the nuclear program) and these fundamental issues should be settl at six-party talks,'' Kim Ryong sonnet a senior cabinet councilor, said before a satiated session of the 13th inter-Korean ministerial talks in a Seoul hotel

Their concern was to the second spherical of talks among the brace Korea, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia aimed at resolving the standoff through the North's nuclear arms program, which are slated to begin in Beijing upon Feb. 25.

The first orbicular was held in Beijing last August.

Kim was responding to earlier remarks from South Korean Unification Minister Jeong Se Hyun head of the southern Korean team, that the reconciliation of the nuclear issue would help spe up inter-Korean cooperation.

The U has maintained North Korea should first take action to dismantle its nuclear program in a verifiable manner and then the U would be willing to tender economic and other benefits.

North Korea has sought a risk of simultaneous steps.

In the 110-minute sated session that started from 10 a.m., Jeong called upon the North to dismantle its nuclear weapons program, said Shin Eon Sang, a member of the southerly Korean delegation and the spokesman for the toward the south Korean side.

''The North must take more agglomerated actions for the resolution of the nuclear issue,'' Jeong was quot as saying in his keynote speech

Asked about what Jeong meant through ''concrete actions,'' Shin said Seoul wants Pyongyang to dismantle its nuclear program rather than just turn to ice it.

In Wednesday's sated session, the South Korean side made proposals designed to further exalt bilateral reconciliation and cooperation, including the arrangement of next to the first defense ministers' meeting and military talks between the pair sides' generals.

The first circular of the talks between the sum of two units Koreas' defense ministers was held in September 2000

Other topics count uponed to be taken up at the inter-Korean talks, which close Friday, include reconnecting cross-border railways and roads, establishing an industrial compage in the North, revitalizing a tourism cast at the North's Mt. Kumgang and arranging the ninth circular of temporary reunions of separated family members, according to media reports.

The ministerial talks have been the highest channel of communication to discuss reconciliation and economic cooperation since the historic summit between then southerly Korean President Kim Dae Jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang in June 2000

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