President Clinton said Tuesday the United States is ready to resolve "once and for all" its differences with North Korea if the communist regime resumes talks with the South and allows outside inspections of its nuclear program.
"The door will be open on a wide range of issues" with North Korea if its leaders meet the U.S. demands, Clinton said after meeting with South Korean President Kim Young Sam.The president said he and Kim were "concerned by North Korea's concentration of forces near the Demilitarized Zone" that has separated the North and South since the end of the Korean War in 1953.
The two leaders met in the Oval Office a day after Clinton said he was working on a new approach to get North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program.
Clinton on Monday said he would announce details of the new strategy after seeing Kim. Tuesday morning, however, a senior administration official said the South Koreans were discouraging the White House from immediately making public the details of the new strategy, even though they fully agreed with the shift in approach.
The official said administration officials planned to spell out the new approach to North Korean officials in New York on Saturday.
The administration's aim is to end a stalemate over North Korea's resistance to Western demands that it allow inspectors from the U.N.-sponsored International Atomic Energy Agency to fully monitor its nuclear program.
North Korea insists its nuclear work is strictly for peaceful purposes, while the United States and others charge that it is seeking to build nuclear bombs.