Fate of nuclear talks in N.Korea hands: Seoul aide

SEOUL (Reuters) – The fate of talks on North Korea’s
nuclear programs depends on whether Pyongyang takes action on
illicit activities that prompted a U.S. crackdown, a South
Korean official was quoted as saying on Saturday.

North Korea knows what it is expected to do on charges
raised by Washington that it is behind counterfeiting of U.S.
currency and money laundering, said Song Min-soon, the chief
national security adviser to South Korea’s president.

“The six-party talks can go forward only if the North takes
the necessary action on currency counterfeiting,” Song was
quoted as saying in Washington by South Korea’s CBS radio and
other media.

South Korea’s presidential Blue House could not immediately
confirm his remarks.

Song was previously South Korea’s lead negotiator to the
talks aimed at ending Pyongyang’s nuclear programs, which also
involve North Korea, the United States, Japan, Russia and
China. The talks have been stalled since November.

Song was in Washington to meet White House national
security advisers and State Department officials.

North Korea has said it would be unreasonable to continue
the talks until Washington ends a crackdown on firms suspected
of being involved in the North’s illicit financial activities.

It also said in a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi
Annan that U.S. efforts to draw South Korea into a campaign
against the spread of weapons of mass destruction — called
Proliferation Security Initiative — would create new obstacles
to the talks.

“South Korea joins the international community in its
concerns about illegal activities that North Korea has been
linked to,” Song was quoted as saying by Yonhap news agency.

“It is very clear what that means,” he was quoted as saying
in the same meeting with South Korean reporters.

“North Korea needs to see what that means, and we don’t
need to play the prosecutor, the defense lawyer and the judge
for all the world to see,” he said, in an apparent reference to
criticism that South Korea has not more directly confronted the
North.

The South’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) said early
this month that it had no conclusive evidence that the North
Korean government was counterfeiting U.S. dollars recently.

The spy agency said on Saturday its director, Kim
Seung-gyu, went to Washington in January and met with the
director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

But an NIS official declined to say whether the purpose of
Kim’s trip was to discuss North Korea’s counterfeiting.

Song played down a planned meeting by North Korean
diplomats and U.S. officials in New York on the financial
crackdown, saying such a meeting would probably not
automatically yield a breakthrough.

But all the countries involved in the talks, including
North Korea, believed the next round of the talks should be
held in the first half of April, he said.

In September, the countries agreed North Korea would give
up its nuclear programs in return for aid and better diplomatic
ties. But there has been no progress on drawing up a plan to
implement the goals.