Seoul not ready to back N.Korea sanctions

SEOUL, July 9 (Reuters) South Korea does not think proposed U.N. sanctions against North Korea would curb its communist neighbour's missile programme or make the region any safer, a senior presidential aide said today.

After Pyongyang defied world opinion and test-fired seven missiles last week, Japan formally introduced a U.N. resolution that would impose sanctions on the reclusive Stalinist state, but veto-wielding members China and Russia are both strongly opposed.

''For the time being, we do not have a clear grounds or reasoning that these sanctions will work for preventing any missile proliferation, or any factors that destabilise the regional stability,'' Song Min-soon, national security adviser to the president, told Reuters.

Japan's revised draft, co-sponsored by the United States, Britain and France, says that no nation can procure missiles or missile-related ''items, materials goods and technology'' from North Korea, or transfer financial resources to the isolated Communist country's dangerous weapons programmes.

Seoul could consider sanctions if it thought they would be effective but is pushing diplomacy to ease tensions, Song said after talks with Christopher Hill, the visiting top U.S. envoy for North Korea.

''This missile test is simply not acceptable,'' Song said.

''Firstly, all the countries in the region, including the United States and (South) Korea, are agreeing on using some diplomatic ways and means.'' JAPAN STANDS FIRM But Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso said Tokyo would not back down on its demand for sanctions.

''For us, only a binding resolution has any meaning,'' Aso told NHK television.

South Korea wants the North to return to stalled six-country talks on ending its nuclear weapons programmes and said it would hold cabinet-level talks with the North from Tuesday, the highest-level contact with the North since the missile test.

North Korea has yet to confirm that it will attend the bilateral meeting slated to run for four days at the South Korean port city of Pusan, Song said.

Song said the two top agenda items for the meeting would be the missile issue and the stalled nuclear talks. This marks a break from previous inter-Korean cabinet-level meetings that have focused on economic cooperation.

Hill told Reuters there might be differences in approaches in the region but there was also a unified voice condemning the missile test.

''What is striking to me, and what I hope is striking to the DPRK (North Korea), is the fact that everybody has reacted with the same sense of anger and outrage at this DPRK action,'' he said.

''I think we are all agreed to get the six-party process moving, moving quickly. And we are all agreed that we cannot have business as usual in the light of these missile launches,'' Hill said.

The last round of the talks on the nuclear programmes, bringing together the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States, took place last November.

REUTERS PDS RN0813