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Seoul: South Korea urged Japan on Wednesday to give North Korea aid to help spur progress in negotiations aimed at eliminating the communist nation's nuclear weapons programmes.
South Korean nuclear envoy Kim Sook also warned that time was running out to capitalise on what appeared to be unusual agreement between the North and the US on keeping the long-running talks moving forward.
The nuclear crisis began in late 2002, after Washington officials accused Pyongyang of breaking an earlier denuclearisation deal by embarking on a secret uranium enrichment programme.
Kim said, "I'm concerned that hesitation at this stage will result in the closure of the window of opportunity that we have worked so hard to open."
As one of the recent positive steps at the talks, he noted the North had recently agreed with Japan to reinvestigate kidnappings of Japanese citizens - one of Tokyo's long-held
demands that it had cited for refusing earlier to give aid. Pyongyang also agreed to cooperate in the investigation of the 1970 hijacking of a Japanese jetliner that was flown to North Korea, where four alleged hijackers remain.
In exchange, Japan has already said it would lift some of its sanctions against the North.
North Korea will receive energy aid worth 1 million tons of oil in exchange for disabling its nuclear facilities in such a way that they cannot be easily restarted. Completing that process has been delayed, however, in a dispute about an atomic declaration the North is also required to submit, outlining its programmes that the US and other countries at the talks want to be eventually dismantled.
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