Seoul, Dec 14: South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung and Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi today agreed to cooperate closely to defuse the rekindled crisis over North Korea's nuclear programme. The two leaders, speaking by telephone, shared the view that the North's decision to reactivate its mothballed nuclear facilities frozen under a 1994 deal was "extremely regrettable," the presidential blue house said.
"They agreed to make joint efforts to persuade North Korea to dismantle its uranium enrichment programme immediately and not to implement its decision to revive its (plutonium-producing) nuclear facilities," it said.
Kim and Koizumi also reaffirmed that the two countries should cooperate closely with the united states to resolve the crisis peacefully and handle the dispute with caution and alertness.
Kim had separate telephone talks with bush yesterday and agreed that the north must reverse the decision to revive nuclear activity, the blue house said.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said in Washington yesterday that Kim and Bush agreed "to continue seeking a peaceful resolution while not allowing business as usual to continue with North Korea."
South Korea's presidential spokeswoman Park Sun-Sook said today that Bush and Kim had stressed the need for South Korea and the US to work together if they were to get North Korea to retract its nuclear ambitions. Bureau Report