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SEOUL (AFP): North Korea can expect to improve ties with the United States and get economic assistance simultaneously with its moves to dismantle its nuclear programs, South Korea said Monday.
“When the process of dismantling the nuclear programs begins, the process of normalization of US-North Korea relations will be launched at the same time,” Song Min-Soon told Yonhap news agency.
“The issue of economic and energy assistance will also go together.”
Six-nation talks resumed in Beijing last month after a 13-month hiatus but failed to reach any agreement on Pyongyang's nuclear weapons drive which in early October produced a nuclear test.
North Korea refused to engage in substantive discussions at the talks, citing no progress in the lifting of US sanctions imposed on Pyongyang over allegations of money laundering and counterfeiting.
Song said he believes that the new US proposals were attractive enough for North Korea to review.
“The North Korean delegates went back to Pyongyang with the US proposals and I think they have been reviewing them in a sincere, careful manner,” he said. “We hope the North come out with practical measures to discuss again.”
Song left for Washongton Monday to discuss follow-up measures on the latest six-party meeting with his US counterpart Condoleezza Rice.
