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| Sunday, 23 April 2006 |
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South Korea offers possible massive aid SEOUL, South Korea (AP) April 22, South Korea on Saturday offered rival North Korea possible economic assistance if it cooperates in addressing the issue of South Korean citizens believed held in the communist state, and urged it to return to nuclear disarmament talks. Seoul estimates that 486 South Korean civilians abducted by the North are alive in North Korea. It also says the North is holding 542 others taken as prisoners of war during the 1950-53 Korean War. "It's urgent to resolve the issue of POWs and abductees in the course of addressing the tragic suffering caused by the national division," South Korean Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok said in the opening session of Cabinet-level talks with the North in Pyongyang. "If North Korea takes a bold measure regarding this issue, our side will make a reciprocal decision of cooperation," he said, according to pool reports from South Korean journalists accompanying the delegation. Lee didn't specify what the reciprocal measure would be, but he said earlier this week that he would propose "bold economic assistance" to the impoverished North in exchange for the return of the South Korean nationals. |
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