Koreas at odds over North's appeal for humanitarian aid in high-level talks

(AP) North Korea appealed at high-level talks Thursday for aid from South Korea, which appeared resistant to promising major assistance until Pyongyang keeps its pledge to start dismantling its nuclear weapons program.

"The North side has brought up the issue of humanitarian aid," a South Korean official told reporters in Pyongyang, where talks between the two Koreas stretched into a third day.

But the official, indicating the South's reluctance to provide the North most badly needed supplies, said that a draft agreement between the two sides "does not specifically mention rice and fertilizer aid."

South Korea regularly sent aid to the impoverished North until last July, when Pyongyang test-fired a series of missiles, prompting a halt in shipments. Relations between the two countries further soured after the North's nuclear test in October.

This week's Cabinet-level talks are the first in seven months. They came after North Korea's Feb. 13 pledge to shut down its main nuclear reactor within 60 days in exchange for aid.

South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun said Thursday that the nuclear deal "should be successfully implemented so that a peace regime can be firmly established on the Korean peninsula."

The Feb. 13 deal calls for a separate forum on discussing a peace agreement to replace the cease-fire that has held the Korean War at a standstill since 1953.

Seoul wants North Korea to make a firmer commitment to the international nuclear accord during this week's meetings. But the North has shunned discussing the nuclear issue with the South, as it has in the past, saying the matter is only between Pyongyang and Washington.

The North focused instead on inter-Korean issues, proposing the resumption of a range of contacts with the South to move forward on reconciliation, delegation spokesman Lee Kwan-se told South Korean pool reporters Wednesday.

In exchange, the North is expected to agree to a South Korean proposal that they resume reunions of families separated since the 1950-53 Korean War.

After Wednesday's meetings, South Korea's chief delegate, Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung, said the negotiations were "very difficult."

Lee, however, sounded hopeful that some agreements can be reached when the talks end Friday, according to pool reports.

The South Korean delegation was to meet North Korea's No. 2 leader, Kim Yong Nam, later Thursday.

The two Koreas remain technically at war since the Korean War ended in a cease-fire, not a peace treaty. But the two sides have made historic strides toward reconciliation after their leaders met for the first time in 2000, and this week's talks are the 20th such Cabinet-level meeting since then.