South Korea to use crucial Cabinet talks

SEOUL, South Korea -- On the eve of crucial Cabinet-level meetings between the two countries, South Korea said Saturday it will demand that North Korea abolish its nuclear weapons programs, while the communist state vowed to stand up to "U.S. imperialists."

A five-member South Korean delegation was scheduled to fly to Pyongyang, North Korea, today for three days of talks.

The meetings come just days after a senior U.S. official said North Korea claimed in talks this week in Beijing to have atomic weapons that it might test, sell or use, depending on U.S. actions.

South Korea "will strongly urge North Korea for the abolishment of its nuclear development and change of attitude at the Cabinet-level talks," the South National Security Council said in a statement.

Officials had said they feared North Korea would cancel the meetings. The two Koreas scheduled Cabinet-level talks earlier this month, but did not meet after North Korea failed to confirm its participation.

Officials said an agenda for the talks would be decided today during the first round of meetings.

The North's KCNA news agency on Saturday made no specific reference to today's Cabinet meeting or recent developments in the nuclear dispute.

But in relatively common anti-American rhetoric, it said "the Korean people are standing up to the U.S. imperialists pursuing a hostile policy toward the DPRK and preparing another war of aggression under the pretext of the 'nuclear issue.'" DPRK stands for Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the North's official name.

KCNA also reported that a North Korean foreign ministry delegation left for Britain on Saturday, but did not say why.

The news agency accused the United States of committing more than 2,000 "serious provocations" against North Korea over the past decade.

"But the heroic Korean People's Army has decisively frustrated every provocation, reliably protecting the security of the country," KCNA said.

It listed a string of alleged incidents, including President Bush's labeling of the North as part of an "axis of evil" along with Iran and prewar Iraq, but nothing since the current nuclear crisis erupted six months ago.

In Tokyo, a senior U.S. envoy told Japanese officials Saturday that Washington was examining a new proposal offered by North Korea to settle the dispute.

Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly met with Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda, but refused to discuss the details of Pyongyang's proposal until he consulted with officials in Washington, a Japanese Foreign Ministry official said on condition of anonymity.

In Washington, the White House said it would confer with allies about possibly seeking U.N. sanctions against the North. In the past, North Korea has said it would consider international sanctions a declaration of war.

The U.N. Security Council expressed concern two weeks ago over North Korea, but did not discuss sanctions.

The talks in Beijing were the first high-level U.S.-North Korean contact since tensions over the North's suspected nuclear weapons programs spiked in October. That's when Washington claimed that the North said it had a secret nuclear program in violation of a 1994 pact.

North Korea subsequently withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and took steps to begin producing plutonium-based nuclear weapons, alarming its neighbors.

U.S. officials said North Korea told Kelly in Beijing that it had reprocessed spent nuclear fuel rods -- a key step in producing nuclear weapons. That claim is not backed up by U.S. intelligence, officials say.

U.S. officials have said they want the "verifiable and irreversible" elimination of the North's nuclear weapons programs. North Korea has pushed Washington for a nonaggression treaty.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the United States will not make concessions to North Korea.