In an advance briefing prior to President George W. Bush's tour of South Korea, China and Japan, a high-ranking US administration official said that a package deal would be available to North Korea, on nuclear weapons, missiles and conventional weapons, if it responds to the US call for talks. The official added that the US is not expecting the North to take unilateral disarmament action.

Since the beginning of the year, Seoul and Washington have been engaged in working level discussions to bring about a "roadmap" to solve problems relating to Pyongyang's missiles and nuclear issues in a step-by-step package deal involving reciprocity.

The official said that North Korea's style was to open another threat window following the acceptance of an existing one and so it was unwise to engage in dialogue on a single issue. He added that the US hopes the North will seek a step-by-step reduction of its weapons of mass destruction in talks with Washington, and that by doing so will come to enjoy the benefits of being part of the international community.

President Bush's visit to Seoul is to demonstrate that reconciliation between South and North Korea was a common objective of the US and Seoul, the official said. He added relations between the US and North Korea were not the central issue, saying that reconciliation and cooperation between the South and North through dialogue were.

(Park Doo-shik, dspark@chosun.com )