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Clinton, Kim invite China, Korea to talks

CHEJU ISLAND,(South Korea): U.S. President Bill Clinton and South Korean leader Kim Young-sam called on North Korea and China on Tuesday to join four-way talks aimed at a permanent peace on the tense Korean peninsula.

Speaking at a joint news conference following an hour-long private meeting on this resort island, Clinton and Kim both said there would be no preconditions set on such talks and urged that they be held "as soon as possible".

Clinton stressed that the talks could lead to a permanent peace and repeatedly ruled out North Korea's calls for direct negotiations with Washington without any role for Seoul.

"We are determined to do everything we can," Clinton said, to end the 43 years of tensions between North and South Korea since they formally ended the Korean War in 1953 with an armistice, but not a formal peace accord.

North Korea, China, South Korea and the United States were the original parties to sign the armistice.

Tensions heightened anew throughout the region with the recent announcement by North Korea that it would no longer honour the agreement that ended the conflict.

U.S. and South Korean officials said invitations had been extended to the North Koreans and the Chinese but that neither had offered an official response.

"Time is on our side and I believe eventually that North Korea will accept," said Kim, who said the harsh economic conditions in the north would add to the need for a peaceful resolution of the situation.

"I think eventually North Korea will accept our proposal," Clinton said but added that chances for immediate peace talks appeared remote.

Separately, a Seoul government official said the proposal had been endorsed by Japan and that Russia did not object but was pressing for some form of participation.

"Japan immediately consented," said the official, who declined to be named. "Russia has not opposed the proposal up front. It expressed a desire for some sort of participation."

Clinton was to visit Russia later in the week, following a state visit to Japan.

North Korea rattled the region recently by three times sending troops into the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas in violation of the armistice agreement that ended the war between the South and Communist North.

On each occasion the troops withdrew without incident.

Clinton said U.S. policy towards controlling North Korea's nuclear programme had been successful since a 1994 agreement between the United States, South Korea, Japan and other nations to provide Pyongyang with light-water reactor technology.

But of more immediate concern were the Northern incursions into the buffer zone in violation of the armistice pact.

Clinton underscored the U.S. commitment to defending South Korea against Pyongyang in 1993 by becoming the first U.S. leader to visit Panmunjom village in the DMZ, where he peered over the border at North Korean soldiers.

Clinton was to fly to Tokyo later on Tuesday for a state visit to Japan where he is due to shore up a four-decade-old bilateral security alliance.-Reuter