North Korea urged to end nuclear plans swiftly

SEOUL, Feb 28 (Reuters) South Korea urged North Korea today to act quickly to end its nuclear arms programme when the rival states met for their first high-level talks since Pyongyang's missile and nuclear tests last year.

North Korea in turn proposed to resume stalled talks on expanding commercial ties and reopen humanitarian projects, South Korean official Lee Kwan-se was quoted as saying in Pyongyang, according to South Korean media reports.

But the North made no specific request for food and fertiliser aid, and it was not yet clear what humanitarian work it had in mind, Lee said.

''There was no word on rice and there was no word on fertiliser,'' Lee said after the morning session in Pyongyang.

In the past humanitarian projects have covered reunions of families separated since the 1950-53 Korean War as well as regular shipments of rice and fertiliser aid to North Korea, which suffers chronic food shortages.

South Korea proposed that family reunions resume immediately and stalled projects to link railroads and highways across the border be completed before the end of the year.

The projects were suspended after the last round of talks in July when Seoul roundly criticised Pyongyang for test-firing a series of missiles. North Korea stormed out of the meeting insisting thats, as a sovereign state, it had a legitimate right to conduct those tests.

Relations took a further turn for the worse after North Korea's October. 9 nuclear test. But their ties have gained fresh impetus after Pyongyang agreed two weeks ago to take steps to end its nuclear programmes in return for up to one million tonnes of fuel oil or aid from five countries.

North Korea's chief nuclear envoy, Kim Kye-gwan, was expected in Washington in the next few days for discussions provided for under that agreement on improving ties with the United States.

Officials from North Korea and Japan were also to hold separate talks in Hanoi next week on normalising ties, all part of steps agreed in a February. 13 agreement in Beijing.

Analysts said the North's recent diplomatic actions, coming after the UN Security Council imposed sanctions in response to its nuclear test, were encouraging but it was best to be cautious until Pyongyang actually delivered on its pledges.

James Schoff of the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said the vast range of steps needed from all parties to fulfil the agreement needed complicated intra-agency work not only by the North but by other countries involved in those talks.

''This is not a recipe for success,'' Schoff wrote in a report.

The inter-Korean meeting in Pyongyang began yesterday and was scheduled to end on Friday. Foreign media are barred from covering the talks.

REUTERS BDP PM1552