South Korea: No time limit on next nuclear talks
(AFP)
Updated: 2005-09-07 14:36

South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon says six-nation nuclear disarmament talks on North Korea, due to reopen in Beijing next week, will be open-ended.

"With no ending date fixed in advance, the talks will continue as long as there are chances for making any progress," Ban told a weekly briefing.

He said his government would "do its utmost to help make substantive progress" at the new talks for which host China will "soon" fix an opening date. North Korea reportedly prefers September 13.

The comments came as the United States and North Korea, the two major players, were still at loggerheads over Pyongyang's demand for the right to peaceful nuclear activities, rejected by Washington.

"(North Korea) had built the nuclear power facilities for decades tightening its belts," Rodong Sinmun, a North Korean newspaper, said in a commentary on Tuesday.

"It is unimaginable for (North Korea) to dismantle its independent nuclear power industry built with so much effort, yielding to outsiders' pressure, without getting any proposal for compensating for the loss of nuclear energy."

The fourth round of talks, which involve North Korea, South Korea, the United States, China, Russia and Japan, broke off on August 7 for a three-week recess and were originally due to resume in the final week of August.

But North Korea delayed the talks for another two weeks, announcing they would resume sometime in the week beginning September 12. It cited annual South Korea-US war games for the delay.

The nuclear standoff began in October 2002 when the United States accused North Korea of a secret uranium-enrichment program in violation of a 1994 arms control pact.

Pyongyang has denied the US charges but declared in February this year that it had already built nuclear bombs.