Seeking aid, North Korea reiterates nuclear vow

SEOUL -- North Korea's No. 2 leader reiterated yesterday 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, North Korea.

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

South Korea, one of the North's main aid sources, had halted rice and fertilizer shipments to the North after it test-fired a barrage of missiles in July.

Later in the meeting, the two sides agreed to resume reunions of families that have been separated by their divided border.