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(LEAD) S. Korea raises concern over China-N. Korea economic deals
By Lee Chi-dong
SEOUL, Oct. 6 (Yonhap) -- South Korea expressed concern Tuesday that a set of economic deals reached between North Korea and China during Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's trip to Pyongyang may affect the implementation of U.N. sanctions on the North.
"We need to check more details to see whether various economic aid plans that Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao promised during his visit to North Korea violate U.N. Security Council Resolution 1874," Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan said in a forum with senior journalists here.
"We expect China to explain it. (The South Korean government) has expressed its interest in the issue. It is a matter to be discussed between South Korea and China as well as in the U.S.-China and Japan-China dialogue," he added.
North Korean and Chinese state media reported that the two countries signed a package of treaties and other agreements on boosting political and economic ties during the premier's three-day visit that began Sunday. These included accords on cooperation in trade, tourism, and the software industry.
Critics said China's move may hamper the implementation of Resolution 1874, adopted after North Korea's missile and nuclear tests this spring in a bid to prevent Pyongyang from obtaining cash for the development of weapons of mass destruction.
The South Korean minister also urged the North to return to the path of denuclearization if it truly wants to improve inter-Korean relations.
"The government views North Korea's denuclearization as a basis for establishing South and North Korean relations of coexistence and co-prosperity," Yu said. "North Korea's position that it will discuss the nuclear issue only with the U.S. and just economic cooperation with South Korea is not right."
He was cautious about predicting whether the North will return to the six-nation denuclearization talks with South Korea, the U.S., China, Russia, and Japan, despite media reports that North Korean leader Kim Jong-il told Wen his country is willing to hold both bilateral and multilateral negotiations that include the six-party forum.
"We need to wait and see North Korea's real intentions," he said.
Another senior South Korean government official later emphasized that the world should pay more attention to preconditions the North attached to the resumption of the six-party talks.
The North Korean leader was quoted as saying that Pyongyang will decide whether to return to the forum depending on the results of its bilateral negotiations with Washington.
"North Korea's expression of its willingness to return to the six-way talks, albeit conditional, is new. But experience with North Korea's traditional rhetoric make me reluctant to give excessive meaning to it," the official said during a background briefing for reporters on customary condition of anonymity.
It is hard to fathom what the North actually means by "six-way talks" this time, he added.
On the latest economic agreements between the two sides, he said China, a standing member of the U.N. Security Council and responsible stakeholder in international issues, would not act in a way that obstructs the U.N. resolution against the North.
lcd@yna.co.kr
(END)
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