tc "EDITORIAL" EDITORIAL

SEOUL (AFP) - South Korea urged North Korea to honour a deal to shut down its nuclear programmes but the North blamed the United States for the delay when the two Koreas met Wednesday for high-level talks.

The hold-ups in Pyongyang's promised nuclear disarmament and in Seoul's rice aid were expected to loom large at the four-day ministerial meeting.

More than six weeks have passed since the deadline for the North to shut down its reactor as the first step in a February six-nation nuclear disarmament agreement. There are few signs of progress in a banking dispute with the US which is blocking the deal.

The North Korean delegation said the US was at fault.

"Your side knows well why the implementation of the February 13 agreement is being delayed. The US is responsible for the delay, not our side," chief delegate Kwon Ho-Ung told the South's team.

His comments at the closed-door meeting were quoted by South Korean delegate Ko Gyoung-Bin, who briefed the media.

Seoul's Unification Minister Lee Jae-Joung had urged the North to implement the pact as soon as possible, saying it is the key to peace on the peninsula.

The North took the South to task for its joint military exercises with the US, and urged it to repeal its tough National Security Law and reject interference from outside forces.

"The North Korean side said the two Koreas should resist pressure from outside forces in the settlement of national (inter-Korean) issues," said Ko.

It described the joint exercises and the security law as "activities that provoke its dialogue partner and threaten South-North relations," he said.

Ko said there was no direct mention of Seoul's decision to delay its first shipment of crucial rice aid until Pyongyang starts denuclearising.

Pro-Pyongyang media have criticised the move, saying inter-Korean issues are not tied to the six-party process.

For its part, the South called for practical steps to solve a dispute over prisoners of war and abductees, but the North reportedly made no specific response.

The South says the North has abducted 485 of its people since the end of the 1950-53 war and failed to send home 548 POWs. The North says no South Koreans are held against their will.

The South also proposed the resumption of talks between defence ministers, after the first and only meeting almost seven years ago.

It pressed for the gradual opening of cross-border railway services following a historic May 17 test run, and greater economic cooperation.

Relations worsened last year with the North's missile launches and nuclear test but improved after the February nuclear deal.

At the last ministerial round in March, the South agreed in principle to resume regular annual rice and fertiliser aid suspended after the missile tests.

But it delayed the first shipment of rice, out of an annual total of 400,000 tons, until its neighbour starts shutting down its atomic programme.

UN agencies say the North faces a shortfall of one million tons of food this year, or 20 percent of its needs.

The North refuses to move until the US solves a dispute over 25 million dollars in North Korean accounts which had been frozen in a Macau bank under US-inspired sanctions.

The US said it lifted the restrictions on the accounts in March. But the North has had problems arranging a transfer since foreign banks are unwilling to touch apparently tainted money.