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KYONGJU (South Korea), Nov 17: US President George W. Bush and South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun agreed on Thursday talks should be held to replace the 1950-53 Korea War truce with a peace treaty and that a nuclear North Korea will not be tolerated.
As part of a diplomatic dance aimed at settling the long-running North Korea nuclear issue, Bush and Roh said they hoped parallel talks on the nuclear crisis and peace treaty would complement each other.
The two Koreas remain technically at war because they have never signed a peace treaty.
In a joint news conference in the ancient Korean capital of Kyongju, Roh said he and Bush agreed on the fundamental principle that North Korea must disarm and had a discussion about the details and tactics. “I have to say we didn’t have many differing opinions on this,” Roh said.
N.ARMED DPRK: The two presidents set aside their differences over North Korea and declared that a nuclear-armed Pyongyang was unacceptable.
They said that ‘a nuclear-armed North Korea will not be tolerated’ and that the issue ‘should be resolved through peaceful and diplomatic means’, calling on North Korea to act ‘promptly and verifiably’.
“I must say that we do not have any differing opinions on this,” Roh said through an interpreter at a joint press conference after the leaders met in the ancient Korean capital of Gyeongju.
Bush gave no ground on Washington’s position that North Korea will not get the light-water atomic reactor it wants for generating electricity until it has verifiably dismantled all its nuclear weapons and programmes.—AFP
