Nations seek flexibility to end NKorea nuclear impasse

SEOGWIPO (AFP) - Foreign ministers of South Korea, China and Japan called Sunday for flexibility to end a complex financial dispute which is blocking North Korea's nuclear disarmament.

The ministers stressed the need for "settlements that should go beyond the legal and technical hurdles while taking care of each other's interests," according to South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-Soon.

The months-long nuclear deadlock was a key focus of the meeting, the first of its kind. The three countries are also part of a six-nation forum which since 2003 has been encouraging North Korea to scrap its nuclear ambitions.

The North itself and the United States and Russia are the other members.
Song, China's Yang Jiechi and Japan's Taro Aso said it was in everyone's interests to honor the February 13 six-nation accord, under which the impoverished but nuclear-armed communist state agreed to close its only working reactor at Yongbyon by mid-April.

It was to be the first step in a full nuclear disarmament process, in return for massive aid and diplomatic concessions.

But the North refuses to act until it recovers its 25 million dollars which have been frozen in a Macau bank since 2005 under US-instigated sanctions.