N. Korea: Weapons will go if threat ends

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea said Monday it does not need nuclear weapons if it is not threatened by the United States, another sign of progress following Pyongyang’s agreement over the weekend to return to disarmament talks.

South Korea said Monday its proposal on boosting aid for the impoverished North, to be unveiled when the international nuclear talks resume later this month, will be a cornerstone of efforts to persuade North Korea to disarm. Negotiators from both sides of the divided peninsula met Monday in Seoul for talks on economic cooperation and aid for the North.

North Korea agreed Saturday to return to six-nation nuclear talks the week of July 25 after refusing to attend for more than a year, citing “hostile” U.S. policies. American officials have repeatedly denied any intention to attack the North, and recently said they recognized it as a sovereign nation.

“We do not intend to possess nuclear weapons forever,” the North’s main state-run Rodong Sinmun daily wrote in a commentary. “If the U.S. nuclear threat to (North Korea) is removed and its hostile policy to ‘bring down the system’ of the latter is withdrawn, not a single nuclear weapon will be needed.”

Separately, the two Koreas were holding economic talks in Seoul, where the South agreed early today to a request by Pyongyang for 500,000 tons of rice aid.

After all-night negotiations, the sides also agreed early today to open an economic cooperation office in a joint industrial zone and to conduct test runs in October of restored road and rail links across the heavily armed inter-Korean border.

The South agreed to provide materials for the North to make its own clothes, shoes and soap, and Seoul in exchange will get investment rights into North Korean mining operations for zinc, magnesite and coal, the sides said in a joint statement.

The economic talks are the 10th such meetings since 2000, when a summit between leaders of the divided Koreas heralded a new era of cooperation.