13 January 2004	Tuesday	20 Ziqa'ad 1424

SEOUL, Jan 12: North Korea offered Monday to freeze its nuclear reactors producing weapons grade plutonium if compensated by Washington in a new sign officials say shows Pyongyang wants to negotiate an end to its nuclear crisis.

"North Koreans are seen trying to clarify their ideas and make them more attractive ... while seeking six-way talks focusing on a nuclear freeze," said Wi Sung-Lac, head of the US affairs bureau at Seoul's foreign ministry.

The overture came as US delegates briefed South Korean officials, including Wi, on last week's first visit by outsiders to the North's nuclear complex since international monitors were expelled more than a year ago,

If the Bush administration was willing to compensate the North, Pyongyang "is willing to freeze its nuclear activities based on the graphite-moderated reactors as a starting point for the denuclearization of the country," the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) quoted a foreign ministry spokesman as saying.

North Korea has previously admitted that it fired up the reactors at its main nuclear complex at Yongbyon, 90 kilometers (50 miles) north of Pyongyang, intensifying the latest nuclear crisis that began in October 2002.

But the North has recently made a series of overtures over the long-running nuclear standoff. Last week, Pyongyang proposed refraining from producing and testing nuclear weapons in what it said was a "bold concession" to the United States.

In exchange, Pyongyang is demanding from Washington an agreement on "first-phase actions", including the lifting of sanctions against North Korea and a resumption of energy aid in return for the nuclear freeze.

Washington halted its fuel oil shipments to the energy-strapped country in late 2002 soon after accusing North Korea of running a secret uranium-enrichment program violating a 1994 nuclear safeguard accord to mothball the Yongbyon plant. In retaliation, Pyongyang said it reactivated the Yongbyon complex.-AFP