SEOUL, June 23 (UPI) -- South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun Thursday urged North Korean leader Kim Jong Il to peacefully resolve the North Korean nuclear issue "as early as possible."
Meeting with North Korean delegates to high-level inter-Korean talks, Roh also called on his communist neighbor to move ahead with measures to ease tensions across the heavily fortified border.
"We pay due attention to Chairman (of the National Defense Commission) Kim Jong Il's remark that denuclearization of the Korean peninsula was the last will of North Korea's late leader Kim Il Sung," Roh told North Korean officials at the presidential office in Seoul.
In Pyongyang last week, Kim told South Korean visitors that he would comply with a 1992 inter-Korean agreement to keep the peninsula nuclear free because it was the last will of the late leader.
"The nuclear issued should be resolved peacefully as early as possible," Roh was quoted by his spokesman as saying.
North Korea's chief negotiator, Kwon Ho Ung, said his nation would press ahead with efforts toward inter-Korean reconciliation and cooperation.
