N Korea, hostage issues dominate Asia security meet

MANILA, Aug 2 (Reuters) North Korea demanded today the United States remove it from a list of states that sponsor terrorism and lift a strict trade ban before further progress could be made on dismantling its nuclear programme.

North Korean Foreign Minister Pak Ui-chun, in his first trip overseas since taking office in May, was addressing the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum in Manila.

The closed-door meeting also condemned the abduction of South Korean church volunteers in Afghanistan last month and the killing of two of them by Taliban guerrillas.

Diplomats quoted Pak as saying North Korea had shut its Yongbyon nuclear facilities and opened them to IAEA inspections and now wanted to see reciprocal action, including being dropped from the U S Trading With the Enemy Act.

''All should be done based on action-to-action,'' Pak was quoted as saying. ''Therefore, five other countries, particularly the United States and Japan, must take action.'' North Korea was put on the U S terror list after the downing of a South Korean airliner in 1987.

Christopher Hill, the U S point-man on six-party talks on ending North Korea's nuclear programme, said he found Pak's comments ''harsh''.

''But you shouldn't believe everything you will hear,'' he told reporters.

''I think this month needs to be a very busy and active time for the six-party talks. I think we have set up a good structure for dealing with our work.'' Hill and U S Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte met Pak briefly yesterday night and both sides reaffirmed their commitment to the six-party talks but did not hold substantive discussions, diplomatic sources said.

The European Union's foreign policy chief Javier Solana said a meeting of ministers from the six countries -- North and South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the United States -- might happen next month.

He said all parties had made considerable progress in recent months, but he cautioned against expecting quick results.

''The way ahead in front of us is long and probably distant.'' KOREAN HOSTAGES South Korea and the United States met on the sidelines of the forum and agreed there would be no military action to free the 21 hostages still alive in Afghanistan, a South Korean diplomat said.

''They agreed that both countries will not use any kind of force,'' the diplomat said after a meeting between Foreign Minister Song Min-soon and Negroponte.

Hill did not comment on military action, but said: ''Our focus is on working with the Republic of Korea in the identical policy in getting these hostages out of harm's way and getting them back home.'' The ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) brings together the 10-member Southeast Asian group with 17 dialogue partners, including the United States, China, Japan, Russia, India, the European Union and Australia.

Sri Lanka was inducted as the latest member of the group on Thursday. Its foreign minister, Rohitha Bogollagama, said terrorism stood out among issues confronting the international community ''by the sheer scale and intensity of destruction it has already caused and what it is capable of unleashing in the future''.

The South Asian island republic has been fighting a civil war with rebels from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for almost 25 years.

''We would only at our own peril draw distinctions between the threat posed, for instance, by al Qaeda and the LTTE,'' Bogollagama told the gathering.

''A single terrorist act in one part of the globe will have an instant domino effect in markets far removed from it.

Sharing of intelligence information assumes a sense of importance as never before,'' he said.

REUTERS PD HT1444