South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak Saturday called for talks with North Korea aimed at ridding the Korean peninsula of nuclear weapons as well as making cuts in conventional weapons.
"Nuclear weapons do not guarantee North Korea's security. They only cloud its future," Lee said in a speech to mark Korea's 1945 liberation from Japanese rule.
"Together with the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula, reduction of conventional weapons of the North and the South must be discussed," he said, urging the North to enter talks.
Lee reiterated that the South would help Pyongyang end its isolation and prosper if the communist state gave up its atomic weapons.
"If the North comes to such a decision, the (South Korean) government will push for a new programme for peace on the Korean peninsula," Lee said.
An international programme aimed at helping develop the North's devastated economy and improving the living standards of North Koreans would then be put into practice, he added.
It is the first time that Lee, who leads a conservative government, has publicly called for cuts in conventional arms, analysts here said.
Lee has previously offered huge long-term aid to the North in return for full nuclear disarmament -- a linkage which Pyongyang angrily rejects.
The two Koreas are still technically at war since the Korean War of 1950-53 ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.
More than 600,000 South Korean soldiers, backed by 28,500 US troops, are deployed on the Korean peninsula, confronting a potential threat from the North's 1.1 million-strong military.
Relations have been frosty since the conservative government in Seoul took office in February last year and pursued a firmer line with the North following a decade of engagement and two summits under his liberal predecessors.
Copyright 2009  AFP Global Edition
