US, SKorea in top-level talks on NKorean nuclear programme

Posted 09 8 2009 6:44AM

SEOUL (AFP) – The United States and South Korea on Saturday held high-level talks on ways to press North Korea to return to disarmament talks, a day after the communist state's renewed nuclear sabre-rattling.

Stephen Bosworth, US special representative on North Korea, met Wi Sung-Lac, South Korea's chief nuclear negotiator.

Bosworth, who is visiting the region for talks on restarting the six-party negotiations which the North is boycotting, declined to comment on details of his meeting with Wi pending a press briefing on Sunday.

Yonhap news agency said they discussed a coordinated response to the North's claim Friday that it was building more plutonium-based atomic weapons and had made progress on enriching uranium -- a separate path to a bomb.

"As the North is raising tensions and making conciliatory gestures at the same time, the two reviewed the situation and discussed a coordinated response," Yonhap quoted a source as saying.

In a defiant response to tougher UN sanctions imposed after its May 25 nuclear test and missile test-launches, Pyongyang said Friday that experimental uranium enrichment was entering the completion phase.

Reprocessing of spent reactor fuel rods was also in the final phase and extracted plutonium was being weaponised, it said.

Pyongyang for years had denied US allegations of a secret enriched uranium bomb-making program, in addition to its admitted plutonium-based operation.

The US government said it was "very concerned" by the claims and vowed to stand firm on the sanctions.

"We continue to be committed to ensuring that North Korea upholds its international obligations and we continue to strongly implement the sanctions that were approved," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

"Our goal continues to be, and will continue to be the denuclearisation" of the Korean peninsula, he said.

State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said: "In general, we are very concerned by these claims that they're moving closer to the weaponisation of nuclear materials."

The US has repeatedly said it wants Pyongyang to return to six-party talks, which group the two Koreas, the US, Japan, Russia and China.

It says it is willing to hold bilateral talks, as Pyongyang wants, but only in the six-party context.

The North had recently struck a more conciliatory note after months of tension.

In August it freed two US journalists and five South Koreans, eased border crossings with the South, sent representatives to talks in Seoul and expressed willingness for direct discussions with Washington on the nuclear standoff.

Analysts said its latest nuclear claims appeared aimed at pressing Washington to open direct talks.

South Korea Friday pledged a "stern" response to North Korean "threats and provocations" as Japan's incoming government said it would maintain a tough stance.

"We will respond with stern sanctions" against Pyongyang's missile and nuclear activities, said Katsuya Okada, who, it was reported Saturday, is set to become Japan's new foreign minister.

European Union foreign ministers also voiced concern but Russia urged talks on the nuclear deadlock.

Bosworth, who arrived from Beijing, also met Unification Minister Hyun In-Taek, who is in charge of cross-border relations.

He is scheduled to have a breakfast meeting with Foreign Minister Yu Myung-Hwan on Sunday before heading to Japan, his final stop.