YONHAP NEWS

(2nd LD) N. Korean leader reiterates pledge to denuclearize Korean Peninsula: report

By Byun Duk-kun
SEOUL, Feb. 9 (Yonhap) -- North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has told a senior Chinese envoy that Pyongyang will continue to seek the "denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," a report said Tuesday, though it was unclear whether Kim indicated any willingness to rejoin stalled international nuclear talks.

China's Xinhua news agency also quoted Kim as saying during his meeting with Wang Jiarui, head of the international department of the Communist Party of China, that the "sincerity of relevant parties to resume the six-party talks is very important."

But it stopped short of saying whether the North's leader said the country will rejoin the stalled six-nation talks on ending its nuclear weapons programs, which involve the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States. The talks have been deadlocked for more than a year.

   Kim reiterated "the country's persistent stance to realize the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," Xinhua said of the meeting between Kim and Wang.

   Earlier in the day, Pyongyang's Korean Central News Agency carried a report on Kim's meeting with Wang, saying that Wang conveyed to Kim "a verbal personal message" from Chinese President Hu Jintao. The KCNA did not elaborate on its content, only saying that Kim "expressed thanks for this and asked Wang Jiarui to convey his regards to Hu Jintao."

   Wang's trip to Pyongyang comes amid a flurry of diplomacy to help revive the multilateral nuclear talks, which have been on and off since they were launched in 2003.

   U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's special envoy, Lynn Pascoe, will fly to Pyongyang Tuesday for a four-day stay to discuss the North's nuclear ambitions, as well as providing humanitarian aid to the impoverished North and other issues. It is to be the first bilateral contact between North Korea and the U.N. since 2004, when Maurice Strong, then Secretary-General Kofi Annan's special envoy for North Korea, visited Pyongyang.

   Kurt Campbell, U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, just concluded a trip to Seoul and Tokyo to reconfirm that the three countries will not discuss easing U.N. sanctions on the North or a peace treaty to replace the Korean War armistice unless North Korea first returns to the six-party talks.

   North Korea has made the removal of sanctions and the signing of a treaty preconditions to its return to negotiations.

   Amid conflicting messages from North Korea, U.S. State Department spokesman Philip Crowley Friday expressed appreciation for China's effort to revive the nuclear talks.

   "The Chinese senior officials have regular discussions with North Korea," Crowley said. "We value that leadership by China."

   North Korea recently fired artillery rounds along its disputed maritime border with South Korea while concurrently proposing talks with South Korea for joint projects. They include an industrial park in the North's border town of Kaesong and the revival of cross-border tours, which have been suspended for more than a year and a half after the tragic shooting death of a South Korean tourist near a Northern seaside resort.

   In another conciliatory gesture, North Korea on Saturday freed Robert Park, 28, an American activist who illegally entered the country on Christmas Day to draw international attention to the North's human rights conditions, citing his "sincere repentance of his wrongdoings."

   South Korean President Lee Myung-bak recently said that he may be able to meet with North Korean leader Kim this year, giving rise to speculation that talks are under way for a breakthrough in inter-Korean ties due to the economic plight the North has been suffering under international sanctions.

   U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Sunday said the Obama administration will continue engaging North Korea, which she described as "a nuclear-armed country," calling for the North's return to the denuclearization talks.

   "Engagement has brought us a lot in the last year," Clinton told CNN. "When we said that we were willing to work with North Korea if they were serious about returning to the six-party talks and about denuclearizing in an irreversible way, they basically did not respond in the first instance."

   bdk@yna.co.kr
(END)