SEOUL, Oct 12: A solid majority of South Koreans believe Seoul should respond to North Korea's nuclear test announcement by starting its own nuclear weapons programme, a survey said on Thursday.

According to a poll by the major daily, JoongAng Ilbo, 65 percent of respondents said South Korea should pursue a path to making itself a nuclear weapons power.

About as many said the government's policies of engaging their reclusive communist neighbour have failed.

Two years ago, when North Korea was dragging its feet at talks to end its nuclear weapons programme and amid allegations Pakistan had supplied it with nuclear technology, about 50 per cent of South Korean respondents in a separate survey said Seoul should start a nuclear weapons programme.

"South Koreans have become much more critical of the government because of the test," said a pollster, who helped

conduct the newspaper survey but who asked not to be identified.

South Korean government officials have said in the wake of the test that Seoul has no plans to start a nuclear weapons programme and reminded its citizens that it is protected by the US nuclear umbrella.

More than 75 per cent of respondents also felt the government should revise the way it engages the North in economic and humanitarian cooperation because of the nuclear test, the survey said.

In a separate survey in 2000, after the leaders of the two Koreas held an unprecedented and unrepeated summit, about half of South Koreans supported the so-called "sunshine policy" of engagement.

For almost a decade, South Korea has tried to ease tensions and pave the way to eventual reunification by sending aid while backing projects such as an industrial park in a North Korean border city where South Korean firms make goods using cheap North Korean land and labour.

The newspaper survey was conducted on Tuesday among 760 adults contacted by telephone with a 3.6 percent margin or error.—Reuters