hankyoreh

U.S. President George Bush has sent a letter to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, the North's official news agency reported on Thursday.

Christopher Hill, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, delivered the letter to North Korean Foreign Minister Pak Ui-chun, the North's Korean Central News Agency reported. It did not elaborate on the contents of the letter.

The move came as Washington is working to secure a complete list of North Korea's nuclear programs.

The office of South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun reacted cautiously to the news of Bush's letter.

"The letter in question was strictly between foreign heads of state. The president's office will not comment on whether the South Korean government knew of the letter, let alone its contents," Roh's spokesman Cheon Ho-seon said.

Under a six-nation deal signed in October, North Korea has to disable its key nuclear facilities at Yongbyon and disclose all its nuclear programs by the end of the year, but Hill, the chief U.S. envoy to six-nation talks aimed at denuclearizing the communist North, on Wednesday said that the North was still trying to hide some of its past nuclear activities.

"We don't want to see a declaration in which everyone can immediately see what's missing. We want to make sure this declaration is as complete and correct as possible," Hill told reporters in Beijing following his three-day trip to Pyongyang.

One of the key programs, apparently still missing from the North's draft list, is a uranium enrichment program that led to the outbreak of the ongoing nuclear crisis five years ago.

The U.S. envoy said his country has "very good evidence, coming from more than one source" that the North purchased equipment and materials that could be used in a uranium program.

North Korea has consistently denied having a uranium weapons program and has reportedly told the U.S. that the materials in question were instead used to build rockets.

South Korean officials noted that the U.S. president's personal message to the reclusive North Korean leader may well be the key to resolving the deadlock in the nuclear disarmament talks.

"This means the level of negotiations between the U.S. and North Korea has gone up to the highest level," an official closely involved in the nuclear disarmament talks said, asking that he remain anonymous.

The official said Seoul was aware of the U.S. president's message to the North Korean leader, but refused to discuss what the message said.

"We didn't even bother to ask because it is so obvious what it said," he said.

This is the first time for President George W. Bush to send a letter to Kim Jong-il, although his predecessor, then President Bill Clinton, sent three letters to the North Korean leader while in office.

Apparently mindful of the latest development in U.S.-North Korea relations, South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-soon said earlier Thursday that it is now time for North Korea to make a decision.

"Currently, this nuclear issue sits at a very critical juncture of stably moving ahead or being crippled," Song said in a lecture at the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

The talks on ending North Korea's nuclear ambition were earlier expected to reopen this week, but the U.S. envoy has said that due to difficulties in securing a complete list of North Korea's nuclear programs, the talks are unlikely to be resumed within the year.

North Korea is to receive various economic and energy assistance and political concessions, such as its removal from the U.S. list of terrorism-sponsoring states, once it completes implementing its denuclearization commitments.


SEOUL, Dec. 6 (Yonhap)