Powerful Lure Draws N. Korea Back to Talks; S. Korea to Provide Electricity to North

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea revealed Tuesday that it offered energy aid to impoverished North Korea as an incentive to encourage it to return to nuclear disarmament talks set to reconvene this month after more than a year of deadlock.

Unification Minister Chung Dong-young said South Korea would provide electricity to the North if it agrees to give up nuclear weapons at the revived six-nation arms talks. South Korean officials had previously refused to give details of the aid proposal, which apparently pushed the North to agree over the weekend to end its boycott of the nuclear negotiations.

Chung said the South would provide the same amount of electricity that the North had been set to receive from proliferation-proof nuclear reactors that were to be built under a 1994 deal between Washington and North Korea. That project has stalled and other energy aid also been halted to the North since the latest nuclear crisis broke out in late 2002, after U.S. officials accused the North of running a secret uranium enrichment program.

“Our proposal to directly supply energy is to provide the power to replace the North’s nuclear energy, which is a key component of the nuclear issue,” Chung told a news conference.

South Korea pledged earlier Tuesday to give 500,000 tons of rice to North Korea in aid separate from the nuclear issue. The aid agreement — reached after all-night bilateral economic talks — would be Seoul’s largest food shipment in five years to the North.

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived Tuesday in Seoul for talks on the North Korea nuclear issue. She was to meet President Roh Moo-hyun today.

On a stop Tuesday in Japan, Rice said the United States wants to make the talks a success, but cautioned the North needs to renounce its atomic weapons.

“What we really need is a strategic decision on the part of the North that they are indeed ready to give up their nuclear weapons program,” Rice told reporters after a meeting with Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura in Tokyo. “Without that, these talks cannot be successful.”