S. Korean president, Bush express hopes for N. Korea

? President Bush and newly elected South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun agreed Wednesday that the Korean Peninsula should be nuclear-weapons free and that the current standoff with North Korea should be resolved through peaceful means.

“We’re making good progress toward achieving that peaceful resolution … in regard to North Korea,” Bush said in a Rose Garden statement with Roh by his side.

Roh, who in the past has urged the United States against slapping economic sanctions on the North or considering military force, said he came to his meeting with Bush with “both concerns and hopes in my mind,” but that Bush had dispelled the concerns.

“Now I return to Korea with only hopes in my mind,” Roh said.

The two presidents issued a joint statement asserting that their countries “will not tolerate” nuclear weapons in North Korea and invited other nations in the region and Russia to help defuse the current nuclear standoff. The leaders stated their confidence that peaceful resolution is possible “while noting that increased threats to peace and stability on the peninsula would require consideration of further steps.”

“Escalatory moves by North Korea will only lead to its greater isolation and a more desperate situation in the North,” their statement said. Earlier, Roh appealed to the United States not to rush to a decision to reposition the 36,000 U.S. troops now stationed in South Korea. His office said in a statement that Vice President Dick Cheney told Roh over lunch that “U.S. troops should stay in South Korea because they guarantee security in the region.”