Lee urges incentives for North Korea talks

BEIJING, Oct. 10 (UPI) -- The international community should quickly develop incentives for North Korea to abandon its nuclear program, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak says.

Lee, speaking Saturday in a joint press conference in Beijing with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao after a three-way summit there with Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, said Pyongyang is showing genuine signs of a willingness to resume stalled denuclearization talks, the South Korean news agency Yonhap reported.

"Now is a good time for North Korea to give up its nuclear ambitions, and there will be good results if we can offer a proposal for a one-step solution of the nuclear issue and conditions for such a deal," Lee told the press conference, adding that the time may be right for his "grand bargain" proposal, in which the North dismantle its key nuclear capabilities in a single step rather than in stages.

"The opportunity may disappear if we fail to seize it," Yonhap reported Wen as saying.

The summit came after Wen met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in which Kim reported said Pyongyang was willing to rejoin the stalled six-party nuclear talks depending on how proposed bilateral talks with the United States pan out.