Seoul sees NKorea's overtures as tactical changes

By KWANG-TAE KIM, Associated Press Writer


SEOUL, South Korea – A top South Korean official said Wednesday that North Korea's recent conciliatory gestures do not represent any fundamental changes, saying the communist country is showing no signs of ending its nuclear weapons program.

In April, North Korea quit the six-nation talks — involving the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan — aimed at ending its nuclear program. In another defiant move, North Korea conducted its second nuclear test in May, drawing international condemnation and new U.N. sanctions.

But the North has been reaching out to Seoul and Washington in recent weeks by freeing two American journalists and a South Korean worker detained for four months. The North also released four South Korean fishermen seized in late July after their boat strayed into northern waters.

The two Koreas also have restored regular traffic for their joint industrial park in the North and agreed to hold a new round of family reunions in later this month, signs of easing tensions. In yet another fresh conciliatory move, the two sides also restored a military hot line in the western section of their heavily fortified border Wednesday. The North had cut the line last year.

However, Unification Minister Hyun In-taek told ruling party lawmakers Wednesday that the North's recent overtures are "just tactical changes because the North has neither declared its return to the six-nation talks nor changed its position" on its nuclear program.

Hyun is South Korea's point person on the North.

The North views its nuclear program as a security guarantee against what it claims is U.S. hostility and its alleged plans to attack against Pyongyang. The North has recently called for one-on-one negotiations with Washington on the nuclear program. The U.S. has said it is willing to hold direct talks with Pyongyang — but only on the sidelines of the disarmament talks.

North Korea dispatched a Foreign Ministry delegation to China on Tuesday, the North's official Korean Central News Agency said, two weeks after Chinese nuclear envoy Wu Dawei visited Pyongyang. It was not immediately clear whether the delegation would discuss the nuclear issue.

North Korea has protested the hardline policies of South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, who wants to hold the North accountable for its nuclear disarmament commitments in return for aid to the impoverished neighbor.

However, he has recently stressed Seoul's commitment to helping North Korea if the North shows willingness to change. Lee made the comments to a North Korean delegation that came to Seoul last month to mourn the death of former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported, citing an unidentified senior ruling party official.

Other newspapers also carried similar reports.

The U.S. fought with South Korea in the 1950-53 Korean War that ended in an armistice, leaving the North and South still technically at war.