By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter
South Korea is aiming to establish a peace treaty on the Korean Peninsula to formally end the Korean War by 2010 after North Korea completes its denuclearization under a new roadmap, sources from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said Sunday.
The roadmap was recently reported to President-elect Lee Myung-bak's transition team, they said.
The plan calls for North Korea to disable its key nuclear facilities no later than March and disclose details of its nuclear programs, according to the sources.
Seoul wants to draw up a timetable for the full dismantlement of the North's nuclear programs and initiate negotiations on building a peace mechanism on the peninsula in the first half of the year, they said.
``We expect the disablement of North Korea's nuclear plants including the removal of nuclear fuel rods to be completed by March,'' a ministry official told reporters, asking not to be named. ``Pyongyang should provide a full list of its nuclear programs by that time.''
North Korea missed a Dec. 31 deadline to disable its main atomic plats and declare all its nuclear programs under the a denuclearization-for-assistance pact signed with the United States, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia on Feb. 13, 2007.
Under the deal, the North is to receive 1 million tons of heavy fuel oil or equivalent aid and other concessions from the five other countries in return for disabling its key nuclear facilities and providing a list of its nuclear activities.
But the Stalinist state failed to provide a complete list of its past and current nuclear activities including its alleged uranium-enrichment program. It insists it gave the list to the U.S. government in November, a claim Washington has denied.
U.S. chief nuclear envoy Christopher Hill urged the North to declare the list before the inauguration of the Lee Myung-bak government Feb. 25.
``There is no reason why we cannot finish the job in 2008,'' he told reporters in Seoul after a meeting with President-elect Lee.
Seoul has been trying to initiate talks over establishing a peace regime on the peninsula, replacing the current armistice signed by the United States, China and North Korea at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.
The war ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, leaving the two Koreas technically at war. South Korea wants to issue a joint declaration with parties to the truce for putting an end to the war, which it sees as a preliminary step to a permanent peace treaty.
However, the U.S. government is skeptical about a war-ending declaration before Pyongyang's full denuclearization.
During the second inter-Korean summit in October, Roh and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il pledged efforts to establish peace on the peninsula. They called for a three or four-nation summit to discuss ways to create a peace regime after formally ending the Korean War.