U.S. repeats call on N. Korea to improve ties with S. Korea ahead of 6-way talks' reopening

By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, May 26 (Yonhap) -- The United States Thursday repeated calls on North Korea to mend ties with South Korea before resuming the long-stalled international talks on the North's nuclear weapons ambitions.
"The first steps need to be between North Korea and South Korea," State Department spokesman Mark Toner told a daily news briefing. "They need to make a good faith effort to improve those relations, to cease their belligerent behavior. Then as that progresses, we can talk about other things."
The remarks come as North Korean leader Kim Jong-il reconfirmed his pledge for denuclearization through the six-party talks while meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao in Beijing.
North Korean and Chinese state media earlier in the day confirmed the reclusive North Korean leader's meeting with Hu in the Chinese capital during Kim's just-concluded tour of China, the North's biggest benefactor, in the third such visit within a year.
Gary Locke, President Obama's nominee for ambassador to China, meanwhile, told a Senate confirmation hearing that he will push Beijing to do more to influence Pyongyang to achieve the North's denuclearization.
China "can, definitely, and must do more" and "step up to defuse the situation," Locke said.
The commerce secretary, the first Chinese American nominated to be the top U.S. diplomat in China, was discussing the escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula after North Korea's shelling of a South Korean border island and the sinking of a South Korean warship.
The two attacks killed 50 people, including two civilians, last year, prompting South Korea to seek North Korea's apology before moving on to the denuclearization-for-aid talks, held last in December 2008.
The attacks have soured the environment for the resumption of the talks, which had already been in limbo over U.N. sanctions imposed after the North's nuclear and missile tests.
Kim's Chinese tour is seen as part of his efforts to seek food aid and other economic cooperation and China's support for the third-generation power transition to his youngest son, Jong-un.
The 28-year-old heir apparent last year was appointed vice chairman of the Central Military Commission of the North's ruling Workers' Party, which oversees the 1.2 million-strong military, amid reports China, North Korea's biggest benefactor, has not yet given full support for the dynastic power transition.
Robert King, U.S. special envoy for North Korean human rights issues, is currently touring North Korea to assess the food situation in the impoverished communist state, believed to be suffering from widespread hunger due to floods and a harsh winter.
The visit, the first of its kind by a U.S. human rights envoy, is seen as reflecting Pyongyang's keen desire to get food aid.
North Korea early this year appealed to the U.S. and other countries for food.
The United Nations last month appealed for 430,000 tons of food for North Korea to feed 6 million people stricken by floods and severe winter weather. A U.N. monitoring team concluded a fact-finding mission in North Korea in early April.
U.S. food aid to the North was suspended in March 2009 amid heightened tensions over Pyongyang's nuclear and missile tests and suspicions the food was going to the elite, not the poor.
South Korea has been less willing to resume food aid due to a lack of transparency in distribution. Critics say North Korea is exaggerating its food shortages in preparation for the 100th anniversary of the birth of its late leader, Kim Il-sung, in April next year.
The conservative Lee Myung-bak administration suspended food aid to North Korea due to the North's nuclear programs, although Lee's liberal predecessors had shipped more than 400,000 tons of food and fertilizer each to the North annually.
hdh@yna.co.kr
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