Four-party talks pursued to discuss Korean peace pact

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SEOUL, July 3 (AFP): South Korea, China and the United States want to hold four-party talks including North Korea to discuss a peace treaty for the Korean peninsula, a Seoul foreign ministry official said Wednesday.
"It is true that such an idea has been under discussion," the official told AFP in response to media reports.
"But nothing has yet been decided. North Korea has not yet agreed and we don't know yet how many parties may take part in such talks," he said on condition of anonymity.
The four countries plus Japan and Russia have since 2003 been negotiating to scrap the North's nuclear programmes, in exchange for major aid and diplomatic benefits which would include a treaty formally ending the 1950-53 Korean War.
The four foreign ministers could meet in Beijing late this month, the JoongAng Ilbo quoted an unidentified Seoul government official as saying.
Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, who arrived in Pyongyang Monday, is expected to raise the idea with North Korea's Foreign Minister Pak Ui-Chun, the daily said.
"South Korea, the United States and China have shared the view that the four-party foreign ministers' meeting may take place around the end of this month," the official was quoted as saying by Joongang.
If Pyongyang agrees, the four-party talks could open before foreign ministers from the six countries meet in Manila in early August on the sidelines of the ASEAN Regional Forum, he said.
"The four-party foreign ministers' talks are being pursued ahead of the six-party talks where in-depth discussions on a peace system will be difficult," the official told the daily.
Under a February deal the communist state agreed to disable a reactor producing the raw material for its nuclear weapons. Last week UN atomic inspectors visited the North to discuss the monitoring of a shutdown.
The war, in which US forces fought for the South and China supported the North, ended with an armistice and not a peace treaty.