SKorea's Lee calls for better ties, NKorea blasts him as 'traitor'
SEOUL (AFP) — South Korea's new President Lee Myung-Bak called Tuesday for better ties with North Korea as the communist state's official media again labelled him a warmongering "traitor."
Lee was speaking on the eve of talks in Singapore between US and North Korean negotiators, aimed at breaking a deadlock in six-nation nuclear disarmament talks.
"I hope the talks will be a success, paving the way for the settlement of the North Korean nuclear problem," he said before a cabinet meeting.
"We will make efforts to improve inter-Korean ties but the six-party talks must also be successful."
Since late last month the North has furiously attacked Lee's conservative government. It denounces his policy of linking economic aid to nuclear disarmament and his calls for the North to open up its hardline communist system.
A commentary in Tuesday's communist party newspaper Rodong Sinmun said "traitor Lee Myung-Bak and his clique revealed themselves as a ring of traitors and criminals" by trampling on national demands for unification, peace and prosperity.
"The manoeuvres by the Lee Myung-Bak clique to force the North to open, which are aimed at transforming our system and absorbing our republic into their so-called free democratic system, will bring nothing but confrontation and war."
Lee was pursuing a policy of "confinement" against the North, it added.
The North has expelled South Korean officials from a joint industrial complex, test-fired missiles and claimed that Seoul was breaching the disputed sea border.
It accused the South of planning a preemptive attack and threatened to turn its neighbour into "ashes" in response. Last week the North announced it would cut off all dialogue.
Analysts say it may be trying to sway opinion against Lee's conservative party ahead of Wednesday's general election in the South. Such claims are "a sophism for distorting truth," said a commentary in the cabinet newspaper Minju Joson.
"Why do we have to wait until the general elections are over to denote our principled position on their anti-reunification, anti-peace and anti-tribal confrontation policies?" said the Minju Joson commentary, written earlier this month but carried Tuesday on the country's official website.
The United States and North Korea held key talks in Singapore on Tuesday over the communist state's nuclear disarmament but the US warned they were running out of time to resolve an impasse.
US envoy Christopher Hill and North Korea's Kim Kye-Gwan -- who are the chief negotiators to six-party talks on Pyongyang's nuclear programmes -- met at the US embassy in the city-state, a US official said.
"I will be discussing the fact that we are kind of running out of time," Hill told reporters ahead of the talks.
"We're not looking for an agreement. I think we're looking to have a consultation on some of the issues that have kept us apart for several months and certainly I will be discussing them."
Kim did not speak to reporters massed outside the embassy compound before heading into the talks.
Washington has been pushing North Korea to come clean on its entire nuclear programme as a key step in a 2007 six-nation denuclearisation deal that also involves China, Japan, Russia and South Korea.
The 2007 six-party deal grants North Korea -- which tested an atomic weapon in 2006 -- energy aid and major diplomatic and security benefits in return for full denuclearisation.
The current phase of the deal required the North to disable its main plutonium-producing plants and declare all nuclear activities by the end of last year.
The North says it submitted the declaration in November. But the United States says it has not accounted for an alleged secret uranium enrichment programme or for alleged proliferation to Syria.
"We can't afford any further delays here," Hill said late Monday upon his arrival from Indonesia. "We do need to make some progress very soon."
A 2007 denuclearisation deal offers the North energy aid and major diplomatic and security benefits in return for full denuclearisation.
