S. Korea to give North fertiliser, no N-accord

North and South Korea ended rare bilateral talks on Thursday without agreement on Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions, according to a joint s...

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North and South Korea ended rare bilateral talks on Thursday without agreement on Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions, according to a joint statement.

South Korea is to begin shipping 200,000 tonnes of fertiliser to the North on Saturday based on humanitarian concerns, the statement issued in the North Korean city of Kaesong said.

The South’s proposal to include a formal recognition by the North of the seriousness of the crisis over its declared nuclear weapons arsenal had held up the bilateral talks beyond the scheduled Tuesday end. There was no mention of the crisis in the statement.

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‘‘The two sides agreed actively to improve South-North relations and to work for peace on the Korean peninsula based on the wish of the entire nation and on the spirit of the June 15 Joint Declaration,’’ the brief three-point statement said.

The declaration refers to an agreement signed by the leaders of the two Koreas at an unprecedented summit in 2000 in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang.

The two Koreas also agreed to resume ministerial talks—stalled since the last round in May last year—in Seoul on June 21, it said. South Korea had hoped to use the bilateral talks—the first high-level formal meeting in 10 months—to put pressure on the North to return to stalled six-country nuclear talks. —Reuters

US says it held talks with N. Korea

TOKYO:

US officials met North Korean officials in New York last week in the first such bilateral contact this year, a spokesman for the US Embassy said today. ‘‘We can confirm we had working-level contacts with North Korean officials on Friday in New York,’’ the spokesman said. Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun said on Thursday that Joseph DeTrani, the US Envoy to six-party talks on the nuclear crisis met PAK Gil Yon, North Korea’s ambassador to the UN. DeTrani urged North Korea to return to the six-way talks and abandon its nuclear programmes in the meeting. —Reuters