VOA常速英语2008年-South Korea Calls on North to Tone Down Rhetori

South Korean officials have issued their first formal response to recent moves by North Korea, labeling some of the North's recent statements "inappropriate." The exchange comes as high-level American and South Korean envoys² warn time is running out in diplomacy³ to end North Korea's nuclear weapons programs. VOA's Kurt Achin reports from the South Korean capital.

South Korean Major-General Kwon Oh-sung has sent a radio message to his North Korean counterpart, reassuring⁴ Pyongyang the South remains⁵ committed to a key non-aggression agreement between the two sides.

However, the message rebukes⁶ the North for what it describes as recent "deliberate slander⁷ and fostering of tensions" which the South finds deeply regretful.

The message comes a day after North Korea's main official newspaper lashed⁸ out at South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, calling him a "traitor⁹" and accusing him of disrupting North-South relations.

North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950. The two sides never formally ended the resulting war, which was halted by an armistice¹⁰ in 1953. Recent events have reminded the world how tense this peninsula remains.

Several days ago, North Korea warned it may turn the South into a "sea of ashes." That was a response to testimony¹¹ by South Korea's joint¹² chiefs of staff chairman that Seoul has contingency¹³ plans to preemptively strike North Korean nuclear weapons sites.

Earlier last month, North Korea expelled South Korean managers from a joint industrial park in the Northern city, Kaesong. South Korean media reports quote military officials who say South Korea has scrambled¹⁴ jets at least ten times since President Lee's February inauguration¹⁵, to respond to North Korean warplanes approaching the North-South border.

Mr. Lee is much firmer on the issue of North Korea's nuclear weapons than his predecessors¹⁶. He says future North-South cooperation is dependent on Pyongyang fulfilling its promises to end those weapons programs.

The chief American envoy¹ to the multinational¹⁷ nuclear talks, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, is in Seoul to discuss the North's four-month delay in providing a nuclear declaration it said would be ready by the end of last year.

Hill warns the diplomatic process is "running out of time," and that North Korea, known formally as the DPRK (Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea), must make a commitment.

"I think the problem is the DPRK needs to make this fundamental decision," he said. "Again, I think we have made progress on the declaration but, until we complete the declaration, we won't have succeeded."

Hill dismisses recent North Korean rhetoric¹⁸ against the South as "entirely¹⁹ propagandistic" and directed "entirely at domestic audiences." He says the comments will have little impact on the multinational nuclear diplomacy.