N. Korea won't talk of atomic weapons

SEOUL, South Korea - South Korea demanded Sunday that North Korea abandon any atomic weapons development, but Northern negotiators in Pyongyang stonewalled the nuclear discussion, calling it a matter between North Korea and the United States.

Chief North Korean delegate Kim Ryong Song refused to confirm a claim made during talks last week with U.S. and Chinese officials in Beijing that North Korea is making nuclear weapons, and instead sought to steer Sunday's Cabinet-level talks toward inter-Korean economic projects, Seoul officials said.

Washington believes North Korea has one or two atomic bombs and may be trying to make more. The North has disputed that claim, saying its nuclear program is meant to generate much-needed electricity.

Possession of nuclear weapons would be a "serious violation" of a 1992 inter-Korean agreement to keep the peninsula nuclear-free, South Korean Unification Minister Jeong Se Hyun reminded North Korea, according to South Korean government spokesman Shin Eun Sang.

"We made it clear that we can never accept North Korea's possession of nuclear weapons," Shin said Sunday.

Jeong is leading a five-member South Korean delegation to Pyongyang in the first high-level talks between the Koreas since President Roh Moo Hyun took office in February. Foreign journalists were not allowed to cover the event, which resumed today.

Seoul officials were encouraged by the North's willingness to hold the talks after canceling previous Cabinet-level meetings this month.

But North Korea remained defiant, saying in its official Rodong Sinmun newspaper that it would arm itself with "a physical means of deterrence" if Washington refused to sign the nonaggression treaty it seeks.

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