South Korea presses North on abductees

SEOUL, Apr 22 (Reuters) South Korea called on communist North Korea today to return to multilateral nuclear talks and provide information on South Koreans believed held there.

It also offered to invest in developing North Korea's mining resources to further deepen fledgling commercial ties.

The highest-level talks between the two Koreas opened late yesterday after Pyongyang put off the start by a month in anger over joint U S and South Korean military exercises last month.

North Korea has said the drills are part of a U S plan to mount a nuclear attack. Washington and Seoul say they are staged to test combined defence against a possible North Korean attack.

Despite easing political tensions in recent years, South and North Korea remain technically in a state of war under a truce that ended the 1950-53 Korean conflict.

South Korean Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok urged the North to return to stalled six-party talks aimed at ending Pyongyang's nuclear programmes and to make progress in the search for South Korean abductees.

''There is nothing more urgent than resolving the question of prisoners of war and people who went missing after the war if we are to ease the tragic pain of our division,'' Lee said in the opening session of ministerial talks held in the North.

''If South-North relations are to enter a new age of reconciliation and cooperation, it is important to clear up unfortunate history,'' Lee was quoted as saying.

Lee has said Seoul is considering a major package of aid in a bid to resolve the issue of more than 1,000 South Koreans believed held against their will in the North.

He has not elaborated on what the package would be.

Lee also proposed to establish a joint mining project in the North's western region of Danchon, which is rich in iron, lead and magnesite deposits, pool reports from the talks said.

It was not clear whether the mining proposal was part of the aid package to be pledged in return for the North's agreement to resolve the POW and abductee questions.

North Korea's chief delegate to the talks, Cabinet Councillor Kwon Ho-ung, offered to work with Seoul to stop what he called Japan's attempt to seize islands off the east coast of the Korean peninsula at the centre of a territorial dispute with Japan.

Reuters DKS DS1340