SEOUL, Nov 6 (AFP) - US President George W. Bush and his South Korean counterpart Roh Moo-Hyun have agreed to step up efforts to resume multilateral talks aimed to end North Korea's nuclear weapons programme, officials said Saturday.
The agreement came when Roh called Bush late Friday to congratulate the US president on his re-election, the presidential Blue House said.
"The two presidents agreed to step up joint efforts to ensure that six-party talks may take place at the earliest possible date," spokesman Kim Jong-Min of the Blue House said.
"President Roh proposed that the two countries give top priority to resolving the North Korean nuclear issue so as to provide a decisive momentum to bring about peace on the Korean peninsula," he said.
"President Bush gave an affirmative response," he said.
Roh and Bush also agreed to discuss in detail the stand-off over North Korea's nuclear drive when they meet on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Santiago, Chile later this month.
Pyongyang failed to turn up for a fourth round of the six-party talks scheduled for last month, including the two Koreas, the United States, Japan China and Russia.
The confrontation began in October 2002 when US officials said North Korea had admitted in a bilateral meeting to pursuing a covert uranium-enrichment programme.
North Korea, however, has since denied running such a programme, and has demanded food and energy aid and diplomatic concessions in return for refreezing an older, plutonium-based nuclear arms programme, mothballed in 1994.
Han Song-Ryol, deputy chief of North Korea's mission to the United Nations, this week told the liberal Hankyoreh daily that Pyongyang does not oppose the framework of six-party talks but was deeply suspicious of US moves.
"We suspect the United States has been using the six-way talks to earn time for its invasion of our country," he said, adding Washington's hostility had prompted Pyongyang to strengthen its "nuclear deterrent force".
11/06/2004 02:37 GMT - AFP