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Seoul: South Korean President Lee Myung-bak renewed his call for North Korea to scrap its nuclear weapons programmes and said on Sunday his country is ready for talks with the North. Seoul would persuade North Korea that abandoning its nuclear programmes "is in its interest", Lee said in a news conference ahead of his trip to the United States for talks with President George W. Bush later this week.
His comments came days after US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice suggested Washington may be backing off on a demand that has held up nuclear disarmament talks with North Korea.
International negotiations have been stalled for months over differences on whether North Korea has met its commitment to fully declare its atomic programmes under an agreement reached last year with the US and other regional powers.
Less important
North Korea has claimed it gave the US the nuclear list in November. But Washington has said the North never produced a "complete and correct" list that would address all its past atomic activity.
Now, the Bush administration has decided that the contents of the North Korean declaration are less important than an assurance that the US and other nations can monitor the North to make sure it is not resuming nuclear activities.
Lee also said South Korea is prepared for talks with the North if they help resolve the nuclear impasse and improve the livelihood of North Koreans. "The door is open," Lee said.
Relations between the two Koreas have worsened since Lee took office in February with a pledge to get tough on Pyongyang.
North Korea has test-fired missiles and levelled harsh personal rhetoric against Lee, and threatened to reduce the South to "ashes". The North has also expelled South Korean officials from an industrial zone and a South Korean-run mountain resort in the North - two prominent symbols of inter-Korean reconciliation.
Lee, who ended a decade of liberal rule in which South Korea sought to reconcile with the North, said that the inter-Korean ties "are going through an adjustment period". Lee also urged lawmakers in South Korea to ratify a free trade agreement with the US
The trade pact signed last year would lower or eliminate tariffs and other trade barriers on a wide range of products and services.
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