hankyoreh

South Korea has told North Korea it is important that the North start shutting down its key nuclear facilities as agreed in the six-nation talks on its nuclear program in February before Seoul resumes rice aid shipments, Seoul's point man on the communist nation said Monday.

The remarks by Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung came one day after Seoul agreed to give 400,000 tons of rice to Pyongyang in bilateral economic talks that ended in the North Korean capital on Sunday.

"(We) told the North Korean side that we cannot hope for peace on the Korean Peninsula unless the February agreement is implemented, and thus we will not be able to convince our people on the need to provide rice aid" to the North, the minister said in an interview with MBC radio.

Under the agreement signed on Feb. 13, North Korea was supposed to shut down and seal its nuclear facilities at Yongbyon within 60 days in exchange for 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil.

The 60-day deadline, April 14, passed without any changes on ground, while Pyongyang said it would implement the initial measures only after it confirms the release of its funds frozen in a Macau bank since September 2005.

The Macau financial authorities have unblocked the North's US$25 million frozen in the Banco Delta Asia for withdrawal, but the North has yet to make any known attempts to withdraw the money while keeping mum on whether it would accept the funds' release as the resolution of the banking issue.

Lee said the implementation of the Feb. 13 agreement is "important" to the provision of the aid to the North, but Seoul would begin shipping rice as soon as the North starts implementing the historic energy-for-denuclearization deal.

"It takes about four months to prepare before sending 400,000 tons of rice, so I believe we would be able to start sending the assistance if (North Korea) begins the phase of implementing" the first 60-day obligations, Lee said on a separate program carried by KBS radio.

The divided Koreas have also agreed to conduct test runs of two cross-border railways on May 17, one of which was newly built and the other reconnected after some 50 years.

"If (the test runs) are again canceled, I believe South-North relations would become fundamentally difficult," Lee said.

The Koreas had agreed to test the cross-border railways on several occasions but they were all called off at the last minute, reportedly due to opposition from the North's military.

Lee said the sides were again unable to win the North Korean military's concession or assurance, except to agree that the sides will "actively cooperate."

Seoul is to provide about $80 million worth of raw materials for the North's light industries if the proposed railway tests take their course as agreed, according to the Unification Ministry.

Seoul, April 23 (Yonhap News)