North Korea reiterates pledge for denuclearization

South Korean Christians pray during a special service opposing North Korea's nuclear program in front of the Seoul City Hall. North Korea appealed Thursday for aid from South Korea at high-level talks, but Seoul appeared resistant to promise any major assistance until Pyongyang keeps its pledge to start dismantling its nuclear weapons program.

? North Korea’s No. 2 leader reiterated Thursday his country’s pledge to abandon its nuclear weapons, as the impoverished nation sought a resumption of aid at its first high-level talks with South Korea since conducting an atomic test.

Kim Yong Nam said “the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula is the dying wish” of the country’s founding president, Kim Il Sung, the father of current leader Kim Jong Il.

North Korea “will make efforts to realize it,” he told South Korean Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung in Pyongyang, the North’s capital.

Lee pressed for North Korea to follow through on its breakthrough Feb. 13 agreement with the U.S. and four other countries to shut down its sole operating nuclear reactor in 60 days, and to eventually dismantle all its atomic programs.

“It is important to make efforts to ensure that South and North Korea cooperate and six countries each assume their responsibilities,” Lee said.

Kim Yong Nam also called for the two Koreas to work together to reunify the peninsula, which was divided after World War II and remains officially at war since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a cease-fire, not a peace treaty.

As talks resumed today, the two sides agreed to resume reunions of families split across their border.

A South Korean official said reunions over a video link will be held this month, with face-to-face meetings set for May.

The reunions are a highly emotional issue between the North and South as many of those hoping to see relatives are elderly and running out of time to see their families. Millions of Koreans were separated following the division of the Korean peninsula in 1945 and the 1950-53 Korean War.

The North had been expected to agree this week to restarting the reunions, which were put on hold last year after the missile tests.

South Korea has been one of the North’s main aid sources since the two nations had their first and only summit in 2000. This week’s meetings are the 20th Cabinet-level talks since then.

But South Korea halted rice and fertilizer shipments to the North after it test-fired a barrage of missiles in July, and relations worsened following North Korea’s Oct. 9 underground nuclear test.