2 Koreas Plan More Talks on Nuclear Issue

SEOUL —  North and South Korea failed Saturday to reach agreement on banning nuclear weapons from the divided peninsula but will continue talking.

A second session of working-level talks that began Thursday stumbled over North Korea’s refusal to name the date when it would sign an international agreement permitting nuclear inspections, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said.

The south told the north it would not agree to cancel joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises starting in February until a date is agreed upon, Yonhap quoted government officials as saying.

The two sides said they would talk again Tuesday.

A nuclear-free accord is crucial if north and south, still technically at war from the 1950-53 conflict, are to implement a historic nonaggression and reconciliation pact signed Dec. 13.

Intelligence reports from the United States and Japan say North Korea is no more than a year or two away from developing nuclear weapons. Pyongyang says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

The Koreas had said they hoped to produce a nuclear-free pact before the next round of prime ministers’ talks scheduled to be held in Pyongyang in February.

North Korea has promised before to submit to nuclear inspectors, but repeatedly added conditions that South Korea and its allies refuse to accept.

Pyongyang surprised the south Thursday at the first session of the current talks held at the border truce village of Panmunjom by renouncing nuclear processing facilities.

It also dropped a longstanding demand that the United States confirm that its nuclear weapons had been withdrawn from the south, agreeing instead to accept South Korea’s assurances.

But Saturday, the two sides traded old arguments about dates and international inspections.