South Korea eyes strong role in nuclear row with North

South Korea vowed yesterday to play a leading role in stopping North Korea's nuclear brinkmanship after its communist neighbour moved fresh fuel to a reactor capable of producing plutonium for nuclear weapons.

President Kim Dae-jung told his security and foreign policy ministers they should seek dialogue with the North through existing channels while working with the United States, Japan and others to defuse the crisis.

"South Korea must play a leading role in solving the North's nuclear issue, which is a critical problem for the Korean peninsula," he said, in remarks relayed by his office after the special strategy meeting.

Kim, who favours constructive engagement with the North over the current US approach of playing hard ball, did not spell out specific new measures but his government has opened channels of communication while discussing aid and reunification.

Defence Minister Lee Jun said the North had made no unusual military moves during the dispute.

Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun, echoing a Bush administration official, said its nuclear moves appeared largely aimed at forcing the United States to talk.

But the US official, who accused the North of playing games to draw the United States into talks on normalising relations, said Washington was unwilling to play the game and predicted diplomatic pressure would be enough to bring the North into line.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a UN nuclear watchdog, flagged the North's latest step towards reactivating the mothballed reactor at Yongbyon on Wednesday.

"We had noticed yesterday that they were carrying out work at the five megawatt reactor in Yongbyon," IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky told Reuters. "And we noticed that they were moving fresh fuel to the reactor."

He said North Korean technicians had broken most seals and disabled UN surveillance devices at all four nuclear facilities at Yongbyon, 90km north of the capital Pyongyang.

Cameras had been monitoring a 1994 oil-for-compliance deal that ended an earlier crisis over the North's nuclear ambitions.

The latest crisis erupted after the United States said in October the North had admitted operating a secret nuclear weapons programme using highly enriched uranium. The United States, South Korea and other states suspended the oil shipments in December.

The Bush administration, which has labelled the North a member of an "axis of evil" with Iraq and Iran, says it appears to be pacing its provocations to draw a US response.

"It's like a strip-tease," said the administration official, who asked not to be named.

The North insists it has a right to possess nuclear weapons and says Washington must sign a non-aggression pact as a basis for talks on their differences.

On Wednesday, it said it was "winning victory by employing strategies and tactics more skilful than" those of its rivals. "North Korea is stunning its rivals," its Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.

The US official said a critical point might come if North Korea started harvesting plutonium from the 8,000 or so spent fuel rods stored in a cooling pond at its Yongbyon complex.

The IAEA's Gwozdecky said no work was being done at the plant, capable of separating plutonium from the spent fuel.

The Bush administration official predicted diplomacy, particularly from China, the North's chief ally, would stop it going that far.

"I wouldn't be surprised if (the North Koreans) try to back off and try to find some way out," the official said.

US intelligence officials say enough weapons-grade plutonium had already been produced at Yongbyon to build two nuclear weapons by the time the plant was closed down in 1994.

Gwozdecky said the IAEA was keeping two inspectors in North Korea to keep an eye on the situation.

South Korea's Kim hands power in late February to President-elect Roh Moo-hyun, who won a December 19 election pledging to deepen his "sunshine policy" of engagement. Roh has criticised Washington's get-tough stance as dangerous.

Roh's spokesman said that the president-elect planned to send a special envoy to the United States in January.

Other UN sources told Reuters that the IAEA governing board was tentatively planning to meet on January 6.