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SEOUL: South Korea's new President Lee Myung-Bak called on Tuesday for better ties with North Korea as the communist state's official media again labelled him a warmongering "traitor".
Lee was speaking before talks began in Singapore between US and North Korean negotiators, aimed at breaking a deadlock in six-nation nuclear disarmament talks.
"I hope the talks will be a success, paving the way for the settlement of the North Korean nuclear problem," he said before a cabinet meeting.
"We will make efforts to improve inter-Korean ties but the six-party talks must also be successful."
Since late last month the North has furiously attacked Lee's conservative government. It denounces his policy of linking economic aid to nuclear disarmament and his calls for the North to open up its hardline communist system.
A commentary in Tuesday's communist party newspaper Rodong Sinmun said "traitor Lee Myung-Bak and his clique revealed themselves as a ring of traitors and criminals" by trampling on national demands for unification, peace and prosperity.
"The manoeuvres by the Lee Myung-Bak clique to force the North to open, which are aimed at transforming our system and absorbing our republic into their so-called free democratic system, will bring nothing but confrontation and war."
Lee was pursuing a policy of "confinement" against the North, it added.
The North has expelled South Korean officials from a joint industrial complex, test-fired missiles and claimed that Seoul was breaching the disputed sea border.
It accused the South of planning a pre-emptive attack and threatened to turn its neighbour into "ashes" in response. Last week the North announced it would cut off all dialogue.
Analysts say it may be trying to sway opinion against Lee's conservative party ahead of Wednesday's general election in the South. Such claims are "a sophism for distorting truth," said a commentary in the cabinet newspaper Minju Joson.
"Why do we have to wait until the general elections are over to denote our principled position on their anti-reunification, anti-peace and anti-tribal confrontation policies?" said the Minju Joson commentary, written earlier this month but carried Tuesday on the country's official website.
In Singapore US negotiator Christopher Hill said talks were "running out of time" as he headed for a meeting with his counterpart Kim Kye-Gwan.
The six-party talks group the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, Russia and host China.
A 2007 denuclearisation deal offers the North energy aid and major diplomatic and security benefits in return for full denuclearisation.
Under the current phase, it was to disable its main plutonium-producing plants and declare all nuclear activities by the end of 2007.
The North says it submitted the declaration last November. The United States says it has not accounted for a suspected secret enriched uranium programme, or for alleged proliferation to Syria.
South Korean media reports say the North is expected to answer such questions in a "confidential minute" separate from the official declaration.
- AFP/so
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