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South Korea says nuclear accord with North Korea still valid
Seoul, May 19: South Korea said today a decade-old agreement with North Korea to keep the Korean peninsula free of nuclear weapons was still in force a week after the Stalinist state declared it dead.
Seoul, May 19: South Korea said today a decade-old agreement with North Korea to keep the Korean peninsula free of nuclear weapons was still in force a week after the Stalinist state declared it dead.
"The official position of our government is that the denuclearisation agreement is still valid," said unification minister Jeong se-Hyun, referring to the 1992 north-south pact to keep the peninsula nuclear weapons-free.
North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said in a May 13 dispatch the agreement was dead and blamed Washington for killing it off.
The agreement was the last legal restraint on North Korean nuclear ambitions after the Stalinist regime pulled out of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and abandoned a 1994 arms control accord with the United States.
The KCNA statement said the us government had "torpedoed the process of denuclearisation on the Korean peninsula."
However Jeong warned North Korea that future inter-Korean exchanges depended on its conduct in the nuclear standoff with the United States.
A joint statement released last week following a Washington summit between US President George W Bush and his South Korean counterpart Roh Moo-Hyun referred to the need for "further steps" if the nuclear crisis deepened.
Jeong said that north-south cooperation and exchanges would continue but added that, "If North Korea takes additional steps inter-Korean cooperation will be affected."
Bureau Report
North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said in a May 13 dispatch the agreement was dead and blamed Washington for killing it off.
The agreement was the last legal restraint on North Korean nuclear ambitions after the Stalinist regime pulled out of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and abandoned a 1994 arms control accord with the United States.
The KCNA statement said the us government had "torpedoed the process of denuclearisation on the Korean peninsula."
However Jeong warned North Korea that future inter-Korean exchanges depended on its conduct in the nuclear standoff with the United States.
A joint statement released last week following a Washington summit between US President George W Bush and his South Korean counterpart Roh Moo-Hyun referred to the need for "further steps" if the nuclear crisis deepened.
Jeong said that north-south cooperation and exchanges would continue but added that, "If North Korea takes additional steps inter-Korean cooperation will be affected."
Bureau Report