Ryu Jin
Staff Reporter

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il said on Friday his country is willing to rejoin the six-party talks in July, if the U.S. ``recognizes and respects’’ his regime, a South Korean envoy said after talks with Kim in Pyongyang.

Unification Minister Chung Dong-young, who returned home after a four-day trip to the North, also quoted Kim as saying the 1991 South-North Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula remains valid and his country has never given up on the nuclear talks.

``Kim said the six-party nuclear talks could be held as early as July if the United States recognizes and respects North Korea. Kim, however, said that further consultations would first be needed with the U.S.,’’ Chung told reporters at a press conference in Seoul.

The top North Korean leader also gave a positive response to calls for inter-Korean relations, such as cross-border talks between general-level officers and temporary reunions of family members separated as a result of the 1950-53 Korean War, Chung said.

Chung, who led the South Korean government delegation to the joint festivities celebrating the fifth anniversary of the historic inter-Korean summit in June 2000, talked with the reclusive leader for about five hours, including a two-and-a-half-hour meeting without the attendance of others.

``Chairman Kim was a very straightforward and decisive leader,’’ he said. ``We had very sincere and frank talks.’’

Kim’s remarks brighten prospects for the multilateral talks, which have been stalled for almost a year since June last year. North Korea participated in three rounds of talks with the U.S., South Korea, China, Japan and Russia, but has shunned further negotiations.

Kim expressed willingness to give up his country’s nuclear arsenal in exchange for a security guarantee from the U.S., rejoin the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which the North quit in 2003, and allow international inspections on its soil, Chung said.

In the closed-door meeting at a state guesthouse in the North’s capital, Kim and Chung, whom the North Korean leader greeted as a ``special envoy’’ sent by Roh, discussed various issues concerning the two Koreas, much of it dedicated to the nuclear issue.]

Chung said he urged Kim to return to the six-party talks to end the longtime standoff with the U.S. and take what the country could get in return, such as a security guarantee, substantial economic aid and improved relations with the U.S., according to South Korean officials.

The surprise meeting, made public just hours before Chung’s return, provided a dramatic finale to the two Koreas’ celebrations, marking the summit on June 15, 2000, between Kim and then South Korean President Kim Dae-jung.

Inter-Korean relations have greatly improved since the first-ever inter-Korean summit, which culminated in the June 15 South-North Joint Declaration, but those developments have been marred by the nuclear impasse, which flared up in October 2002.

Faced with economic difficulties since the 1990s, the North has sought to normalize relations with the U.S. and end decades-old confrontation with its enemy through a ``nuclear endgame,’’ experts say.

In a Washington summit last Friday, Roh and U.S. President George W. Bush laid out a package of incentives for the North, including a security guarantee, substantial economic aid and ``more normal relations’’ between North Korea and the U.S., in return for its denuclearization.

Kim was quoted as describing Bush as a ``good person to talk with’’ when asked by Chung to answer how he thought of the U.S. president, who recently called him ``Mr. Kim Jong-il.’’

``Should I attach `His Excellency’ to his name?’’ he said. ``His Excellency President Bush! Well, I don’t have any reason to hate him. I was told by Russian President Vladimir Putin that he is a good person to talk with and a person whom I will find it very interesting to talk with.’’

jinryu@koreatimes.co.kr