S. Korea pushes for U.S.-N. Korea talks

The border between North and South Korea: One of the last Cold War hotspots

SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) -- South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung says North Korea has no other choice but reopen dialogue with the United States.

Kim said the United States could provide the crucial security and economic aid to North Korea, according to presidential spokesman Park Sun-Sook.

Speaking at a meeting with foreign ministry officials on Wednesday, Kim also said U.S. President George Bush had assured him during last month's summit that there would be no military attack against North Korea.

Kim said even with the new Bush administration in Washington, the North will eventually realize there is no other way.

"And we must do our utmost to help North Korea and the United States resume talks," he was quoted as saying.

Kim also told foreign ministry officials that improvements in South-North Korea relations were also difficult without improvements in U.S.-North Korea relations.

"The two relationships are closely linked and must be developed in parallel," he was quoted as saying.

New low

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Relations between Pyonyang and Washington have plummeted to a fresh low following the leaking of a Pentagon nuclear review that named seven countries, including North Korea and China, on a list of U.S. nuclear targets.

North Korea had been smarting over earlier comments from U.S. President George W. Bush which labeled the communist state as part of an "axis of evil" with Iraq and Iran that was intent on acquiring or making weapons of mass destruction.

The details of the nuclear review have prompted strong words from the Asian nation and a threat to pull out of a crucial nuclear deal with the United States.

North Korea warned the United States it would be "grossly mistaken" if it chose to attack the communist state with nuclear weapons and it would take "countermeasures" against the review.

'Nuclear fanatics'

Washington says North Korea is engaged in developing long-range missiles

"A nuclear war to be imposed by the U.S. nuclear fanatics upon the DPRK would mean their ruin in nuclear disaster," a statement carried on the official Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) last week said, using the official title for North Korea.

Following the latest diplomatic swipe, North Korea gave a better indication of its "countermeasures" and hinted at withdrawing from a deal that it signed with the United States in 1994, which froze Pyongyang's suspected atomic weapons program and averted near-conflict.

"In the case of the DPRK in particular, the U.S. gave specific assurances in the 1993 DPRK-U.S. joint statement and the 1994 DPRK-U.S. Agreed Framework that 'it would not use nuclear weapons against the DPRK and threaten the DPRK with them'," a statement from the North Korean foreign ministry said last week.

"Based on these assurances, the DPRK has sincerely fulfilled over the last eight years its commitments under the agreed framework aimed at the improved DPRK-U.S. relations, its keynote being the U.S. provision of light-water reactors to the DPRK in return for the freeze of its nuclear facilities," it said.