Minister Song Assures Denuclearization Bound to Peace Regime Talks

South Korea's Foreign Minister reaffirmed Friday North Korean denuclearization will be a key condition for talks to bring permanent peace to the divided Korean Peninsular, stressing such discussions will involve the United States and China as main partners.

Song Min-soon told a conference in Seoul that the agreement struck at this week's inter-Korean summit "basically factors the four parties" into the talks for an envisioned peace treaty that would replace the 1950-53 Korean War cease-fire. The U.S. and China are signatories to the armistice that ruled out South Korea.

"Talks on a peace regime will occur in line with denuclearization," Song said, suggesting the timing of such talks will depend on progress in North Korea's nuclear disarmament.

The two Koreas, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia recently approved a six-party agreement committing Pyongyang to disable and declare all its atomic programs and facilities by year-end in exchange for broad concessions, including its removal from the U.S. list of terrorism-sponsoring states.

This week's inter-Korean summit, only the second since the fratricidal conflict, has produced a joint statement between South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il that calls for Pyongyang to make good on such denuclearization deals.

Conservatives have accused Roh of harboring ideas to settle for an arbitrary peace deal with North Korea while the communist state _ which demonstrated its first atomic explosive last year _ has not followed through with its nuclear pledge with the South, the U.S., Japan, Russia and China.

Peace talks will coincide with progress in North Korea's denuclearization "as demonstrated in the declaration where denuclearization is placed alongside a peace regime in a single clause," Song said, referring to the joint statement produced Thursday after the three-day summit meetings in Pyongyang.